ANTI-POVERTY PROGRAM
FOR TRIBES LAUNCHED BY DA
By Manny Piñol
The Department of Agriculture (DA) has launched a sustainable livelihood program for the members of the Indigenous People (IP) which aims to lift thousands of tribal families from poverty in 5 years.
The Kabuhayan at Kaunlaran ng Kababayang Katutubo is a complete contrast to the controversial 4Ps or Conditional Cash Transfer which provides periodic dole-outs to poor families amounting to P70-B every year.
The 4K Program, which I designed personally following the directive of President Rody Duterte for DA to help in the development of the Tribal Communities, revolves around activities which the Indigenous People are very familiar with, including the planting of trees.
With the Dept. of Agriculture as the lead agency, each family in the Ancestral Domain will be asked to identify a 5-hectare area for his Tree Farm.
Through the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC), the DA, will implement a No-Interest, No-Collateral, Pay-Upon-Harvest loan program amounting to P300,000 for 5 hectares of Tree Farm with a 500-tree population per hectare.
The loan will be released on a monthly basis at P5,000 per month based on the assumption that the 4K Family will ensure that all 500 trees are growing and they will be given a monthly “maintenance” incentive of P2 per tree.
In five years, the trees, when harvested are estimated to fetch a minimum of P2,000 each or an estimated gross income of P1-M per hectare or P5-M for the five hectares.
After the advanced “maintenance incentive loan” totalling P300,000 is deducted and paid back to ACPC, the 4K Program Participating Family is expected to earn at least P4-M.
Since Falcata and Gemelina are self-regenerating trees which grow saplings when harvested, the Tree Farm will be a sustainable and stable source of income for the Tribal People.
Additional Income Opportunities include the planting of Cacao, Coffee, Black Pepper or Abaca under the Trees.
To sustain the families, they could also be taught to raise native pigs and free range chicken while the women in the community to be established in the Ancestral Domain settlement could be taught to raise dairy goats whose production could be used in a milk-feeding program for the children in the communities.
Funding for these projects could initially come from the Dept. of Agriculture’s 2018 Budget for High Value Crops and Livestock. Additional funding could be included in the 2019 and succeeding budgets.
The total target area for the program under the term of President Duterte is 100,000 hectares which will involve 20,000 families.
The families are expected to start earning from their farms through their Cacao, Coffee or Abaca intercrops on the second year of the program.
The bulk of their earnings which would turn them into “millionaires” would start on the fifth year when the trees would be harvested.
The choice of Tree Farming as the core activity of the program is strategic for the Agriculture Department because this will result in the planting of 50-M trees in unproductive agricultural areas and is expected to result in the prevention of soil erosion and the preservation of sources of water.
In five years, the formerly bald mountains in the Ancestral Lands are expected to be green with growing trees again and the Tribal Families will finally feel a genuine anti-poverty program implemented by government.
A company owned by businessman Edmundo Puyat Reyes has expressed interest in buying the produce of the 4Ks beneficiaries.
(Photos downloaded from files.)
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