Back in the early days of the Duterte Presidency, when the late Gina Lopez was Environment Secretary, I crafted a multi-dimensional program which aimed to reforest the denuded mountains, ensure sustainable agriculture while addressing rural poverty.
I called the program “Bantay Kagubatan,” a modified model of the National Greening Program of government, where the project was awarded to contractors who abandoned the areas after digging holes and planting multiple varieties of seedlings.
As we all know now, Gina’s appointment was rejected by the Commission on Appointments and a few years after returning to private life and continuing her advocacy for the environment, she lost to the Big C.
Before I left the DA, the program was modified and became the 4Ks Program for the Indigenous People’s Ancestral Domain or Kabuhayan at Kaunlaran ng Kababayang Katutubo. This is now a program implemented by the DA.
When Sen. Christopher Lawrence Go introduced the “Balik Probinsya” Program Friday morning which was eagerly endorsed by President Rody Duterte, I pulled out the program design from my files to offer it as one of the livelihood options.
In the “Bantay Kagubatan” program, urban dwellers returning to the provinces could be given stewardship of at least 5 hectares in the reforestation areas classified under the Integrated Forest Management and Community-Based Forest Management programs.
With the needed orientation and training, they will be introduced to tree farming under the “Bantay Kagubatan” component of the “Balik Probinsya” Program.
It will be the families who will plant the trees, the variety to be determined by a pre-identified off-taker and the family will be given a monthly financial incentive for every tree seedling which grows.
Since it will take at least 8 years before the trees could be harvested, the family will be given livelihood projects with quick ROIs like backyard chicken, native hog or goat raising projects.
The family will also be assisted in developing multi-crop farming by planting Coffee, Cacao or Black Pepper in his tree farm.
The initial estimates indicated that a tree-farming family will earn P5,000 as incentives monthly if all of the 500 seedlings per hectare or 2,500 for the five hectares grow.
Aside from that the family is expected to earn P10,000 with 20 hens in the backyard and a few thousand more from other farm activities.
Earnings from Cacao, Coffee and Black Pepper could start coming in after 3 to 4 years while the bigger income, estimated to be at least P1-M would come from his 5-hectare tree farm.
This program, however, will only succeed if there is a complete value chain, meaning when the family plants the trees, there must already be a marketing agreement signed with an off-taker.
The same goes for the other farm activities.
The budget?
This is a program which could be very well dove-tailed with the 4Ps Program.
Instead of giving poor families monthly dole-outs and make go through the demeaning process of lining up in front of the ATM under the heat of the sun, let us give poor families a one-time chance to improve their lives by providing them the financial support that they need under this program.
Minsanan lang, hwag na pautay-utay. One time full support, not piecemeal.
This, I believe, is a more quantifiable anti-poverty program because government could actually determine the results through physical indicators not some vague suppositions.
The Balik Probinsya Program of Senator Go, which is supported by President Duterte, could change both the urban and rural landscape.
We could see the clearing of urban slums and the birth of decent and self-respecting Filipino families in the countryside who could stand on their own with a one-time help from government.
Lao Tzu said it perfectly: “Give man fish today, he will not go hungry for one day; Teach him how to fish, he will not go hungry for the rest of his life.”
(Photos came from my personal file, DA media team or downloaded from public websites.)
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