BARMM Breakthrough! Big Bangsamoro Clans Join Sorghum, Soybeans Program

On Sunday, June 30, a technical team which I formed will conduct a Digital Drone Mapping of large landholdings in the Province of Maguindanao del Norte to mark the start of the Sorghum and Soybeans Integrated Farming Program in Datu Odin Sinsuat town.
Leading the move to introduce the new crops to farmers in the Bangsamoro Region are the husband and wife team of Muslimen Sema, former Mayor of Cotabato City and Chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front in Central Mindanao, and his wife, former Congresswoman Bai Sandra Sinsuat-Ampatuan-Sema.
With an initial area of 500-hectares, the prospective area for the Sorghum & Soybeans Integrated Farming Program is expected to expand to thousands.
“You should understand our culture of copying what others are doing and while some may call as “Inggit-inggit,” I consider it as a positive attitude of following successful models,” Bai Sandra, who is now out of politics, explained to me.
“Between us and our relatives, we could easily commit thousands of hectares because many of our areas are either idle or simply planted with marginal crops which do not really earn decent returns,” Bai Sandra said.
The area where our technical team will conduct drone mapping on Sunday and Monday used to be a rebel camp where, as a young newsman, I interviewed an equally young Moro rebel commander, Muslimen Sema.
The area is so wide that the team has to use a fixed-wing drone for the mapping to determine the total area and the boundaries of the vast estates.
Since I and former Senator Ping Lacson started the Sorghum Program in 2022 and over a year after I introduced Soybeans farming with the help of a friend, German Panghulan of Vetmate Farma Corp., this will be the first time that we will enter into a farming partnership with owners of thousands of hectares of contiguous areas.
This will make our operations easier since our tractors and other equipment will not have to move from one place to another.
More than that, this will be a game changer in Agriculture in the Bangsamoro Area where decades of conflict had turned a very fertile area into a region with very high poverty incidence.
Soon, things may change for the better.
#KungGustoMaramingParaan!
(Photo of the fixed-winged drone was downloaded from public websites.)