500 Maguindanao farmers receive farm equipment from DA

AGRI-SUPPORT. Farm equipment worth PHP46 million for Maguindanao farmers. (DA-12 photo)

BULUAN, Maguindanao — An agriculture official in Region 12 vowed to equip farmers with the necessary equipment as government support for them to improve productivity and sustain rice sufficiency in the coming years.

Engr. Milagros Casis, DA-12 regional director, made the assurance during the turnover program on Saturday of PHP46-million worth of farm equipment and facilities to some 500 farmers in Maguindanao under the Special Area for Agricultural Development (SAAD) program.

“We are behind you in your desire to increase income and productivity,” Casis said.

The equipment package includes 229 units of farm machines that were initially turned over to farmers’ cooperatives in 16 of Maguindanao’s 36 municipalities.

Among those distributed were irrigation pump machinery and power tillers.

Maguindanao Governor Esmael Toto Mangudadatu said farmers in the province are lucky to have such kind of government program extended for free.

“Those types of machinery were given free to us, so it’s our duty and counterpart to utilize it well,” he told the farmer-beneficiaries here.

SAAD is one of the programs of DA that intends to alleviate poverty in the poorest provinces of the country by helping farmers and fishermen through agricultural and fisheries provisions.