Transforming Taraka 3-Day Learning Trip Ends; Journey For Change Begins

Davao City – Six Solar-Powered Water Systems to provide drinking and irrigation water, a chicken and egg production project for every village, modern rice farming with complete value chain, corn and Sorghum farming complete with marketing agreement, a dairy goat multiplier farm, duck raising for egg production and Tilapia fish cage farming.

A learning site for rural development to be named Maranao New Hope Agricultural Learning Centre (MAHAL Centre) will also be established as a joint project of the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) and the Taraka LGU.

A computerized data-base which will contain all the socio-economic profiles of families in the town will also be established jointly by MinDA and the Taraka LGU.

These were among the projects which the officials of Taraka, Lanao del Sur and their farmer leaders said they wanted to have after a 3-day learning trip which brought them to areas with outstanding farming practices.

During the after-travel assessment held at the MinDA office in Davao City yesterday, Taraka Mayor Nashida Sumagayan and Vice Mayor Amenodin Sumagayan along with officials and farmer leaders of the town shared their learning experiences and their dreams for their town which has a poverty incidence of 66.86%.

Mayor Sumagayan, a former university professor who took over the town from her husband, broke down and cried as she shared her dreams for her town.

The 6 units of Solar-Powered Water Systems will be financed by the local government unit itself through a loan to be obtained under the MinDA Water program of the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA), the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Development Bank of the Philippines.

Two of the units will have filtration facilities to provide drinking water to the town’s 27,000-residents while providing irrigation water to at least 1,200 hectares of rice farms in Taraka.

All the other projects will be a joint undertaking of the Taraka LGU and MinDA with the support of private partners like PILMICO Feeds Corporation, CP FOODS Philippines and Ultramart.

The Department of Agriculture will also be engaged in the Taraka Project.

It was agreed yesterday that all the interventions for Taraka are part of the program to turn the town into a learning site for other municipalities of Lanao del Sur which is among the four provinces of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region with very high poverty incidence.

The loan agreement between Taraka and DBP and the start of the construction of the solar-powered irrigation systems, along with the other projects, have been scheduled middle of March this year.

During yesterday’s assessment and targeting meeting, it was agreed that all efforts should be aimed at reducing Taraka’s poverty level from 66.86% to 30% by the end of the term of President Rody Duterte in mid-2022.

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