Agrarian reform beneficiary organizations provide critical food supplies to hospital, jail

By JOHN COLASITO
May 14, 2020

TACLOBAN CITY – OIC-Regional Director Ismael Aya-ay of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) was happy to know that the agency-issued quarantine accreditation pass helped the marketing activities of the agrarian reform beneficiaries organizations (ARBOs) in Eastern Visayas survive amidst the lockdown prevailing in the country due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

In the province of Leyte, two DAR-assisted farmer organizations continue to provide critical food supplies to government institutions.

Leyte-Biliran Provincial Agrarian Reform Program Officer II, Renato Badilla, disclosed that the MAALSADA Farmer Irrigators Service Cooperative (FISCO) continues to deliver over 6,000 kilos of milled-rice to the Eastern Visayas Regional Medical Center (EVRMC) in this city despite the lockdown.

MAALSADA FISCO, situated in remote Sitio Amanantas of Barangay Dapdap in Alangalang town, is a farmer organization supported by the DAR.

On the other hand, Badilla added, another DAR-assisted farmer organization, the Paglaum Farmers Association (PFA), likewise sustains to supply some 3,000 kilos of assorted vegetables to the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP), also in this city, despite the current situation.

PFA is based in an upland village in this city some 15 kilometers away from the downtown area. Both organizations are part of a separate marketing tie-up arrangements facilitated by DAR under the Enhanced Partnership Against Hunger and Poverty program (EPAHP).

According to Badilla, under the marketing tie-up arrangements, EVRMC and BJMP will buy milled rice, vegetables, fruits and other farm products which they will use in feeding patients, and persons deprived of liberty (PDL), respectively, from the two-mentioned ARBOs.

As assistance extended by the office to the two ARBOs during this hard and trying times, Badilla added that they were among those provided with the DAR-issued quarantine accreditation pass which was authorized by the inter Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease (IATF-EID) based on Resolution No. 19, dated April 3, 2020, to allow agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) the continuous supply of agricultural products to critical areas affected by the enhanced community quarantine.