A TOTAL of 217 agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) in Calatrava town took their oath and signed the Application to Purchase and Farmer’s Undertaking as they qualified for the screening process to become land recipients.

Farmers of the landholding owned by Menchaca Integrated Agricultural Corporation swore in before Judge Charmaine Mascardo of the Calatrava-Toboso Municipal Trial Court recently.

Municipal Agrarian Reform Program Officer Melvida Corazon Mercado said as ARBs took oath to become the new owners of agricultural land, they must cultivate the land to make it productive.

Mercado said the agrarian reform program is founded on the rights of farmers and farmworkers who are landless, to own directly and collectively the land they till.

"To this end, the state shall encourage and undertake the just distribution of all agricultural lands," she added.

The rites were held at Mina Agrarian Reform Farmworkers Association covered court in Barangay Refugio in the northern Negros Occidental locality.

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 for the tillers of the land towards the improvement of their quality of life.

DAR-Negros Occidental I said the oath-taking and signing is one of the preliminary activities of the agency to acquire land through Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (Carper).

Through the program, the agency is mandated to redistribute government and private agricultural lands to landless farmers and farm workers to secure their land security and social equity.

This would also provide them with the necessary productive resources needed to ensure their economic viability and productivity.

It also covers all tenanted agricultural lands such as those in the retained areas, not yet acquired for distribution under Carp, and those which may be validly covered under existing laws.

With Negros Occidental still under the modified general community quarantine, the activity complied with health protocols, it added.