DAVAO CITY —Despite the threat posed by the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) last year, the Department of Agrarian Reform – Caraga (DAR-13) director Leomides Villareal reported on Thursday a high accomplishment on their distribution of Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOA) in the region.
Villareal said DAR distributed 2,562 hectares of agricultural land to 1,583 agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) in Caraga last year.
He said they surpassed their 366-hectare target for 2020.
The DAR provincial office in Surigao del Sur topped the number of CLOA distributed with 1,978 hectares of land given to 1,147 ARBs. It was followed by Agusan del Sur with 397 hectare given to 297 ARBs; Agusan del Norte with 107 hectares given to 77 ARBs, and Surigao del Norte with 79.93 hectares given to 62 ARBs.
“We are setting-up our targets for this year and we would like to assure our farmers here in Caraga that DAR will continue to perform its mandate despite the prevailing situations,” Villareal said.
He said DAR is now looking at the distribution of agricultural lands to agriculture graduates in the region because “our agriculture graduates are the future of the agriculture sector as we observed that most of the young generation now prefer to venture into other fields than farming.”
Villareal said the prioritization of agriculture graduates will be in line with the Executive Order No. 75 issued by President Rodrigo Duterte in February 2019.
The Executive Order No. 75 directed all agencies of the government to identify government-owned land that can be distributed through the land reform program. – Newsline.ph
