THE Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in Negros Occidental-North targets to provide support services to at least 10,300 agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) in the northern part of the province this year.
Such target was set during the Program Beneficiaries Development Division's (PBDD) Planning and Assessment Conference at DAR-Negros Occidental I Provincial Office in Bacolod City recently.
Officer-In-Charge Provincial Agrarian Reform Program Officer II Teresita Mabunay, in a statement, said the agency's success is not only measured by the lands it distributed to landless farmers but also by the essential support services provided for them.
"These services are vital in ensuring the productivity of the farmers' land and sustainability of their livelihood," she said.
Mabunay added that the conference was conducted to assess the division's success, analyze its weaknesses, and strategize for approaches to further improve its support services delivery for the farmer-beneficiaries.
Among the important interventions to be conducted by the PBDD are ARB organizing and development, enterprise management, profitability, sustainability, and provision of agricultural extension services and farm input support.
DAR-Western Visayas earlier recognized DAR-Negros Occidental I as the best performing operating unit in the region.
Those interventions were strategically crafted to ensure a high accomplishment rate this year.
"These will make DAR-Negros Occidental I not only competitive but also efficient in serving the farmers of the province," the agency said.
The PBD is a support service delivery component of the DAR that aims to capacitate ARBs and provide them access to salient support services.
The DAR is the lead government agency that holds and implements comprehensive and genuine agrarian reform which actualizes equitable land distribution, ownership, agricultural productivity and tenurial security among farmer-beneficiaries for the improvement of their quality of life.