A total of 13,380 lumads in Mindanao have benefited from livelihood projects of the antipoverty program of the Department of Agriculture (DA).
The Mindanao Rural Development Program (MRDP) in its recent report to DA Sec. Proceso J. Alcala noted that 27 percent of the total 49,537 individual beneficiaries of the Program are indigenous peoples (IPs) who belong to the most marginalized sectors of rural Mindanao. Of the number, 7,665 were male and 5,715 were female.
MRDP, the poverty alleviation initiative of the DA in Mindanao jointly funded by the World Bank, the national government and local government units, aims to provide agribusiness opportunities to, and improve incomes of, small farmers and fisherfolk and other vulnerable sectors of society.
Program director Lealyn A. Ramos said that the number is close to the overall target of 30 percent of indigenous people as beneficiaries of the Community Fund for Agricultural Development (CFAD) component, the livelihood arm of the Program.
Ramos in the report to Secretary Alcala showed that the Caraga region has served a total of 3,397, mostly belonging to Higa-onon and Mamanwa tribes in Agusan del Sur and Surigao provinces. Region 12 has benefited 2,946 Tedurays, T’bolis and B’laans of the Cotabato and Sarangani provinces.
A further total of 2,702 made up of Atas, Manobos, Mansakas and Mandayas of the Davao region have benefited from the program, 2,013 of whom are in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) who are Tedurays and Samalians of Tawi-Tawi; Region 10 benefited 1,222 lumads while1,100 others are in Region 9, mostly of the Subanen tribe.
“With CFAD, we are applying the community-driven development (CDD) procedures where the beneficiaries themselves identify the projects the befit them,” said Ramos.
“Most projects of the IPs belong to the food security interventions category in our menu, like animal and crop production, organic farming and diversified farming, which are suitable to their cultural practices,” Ramos added.
To date, CFAD’s portfolio is pegged at P495.51 million with a total of 1,988 livelihood projects at various levels of implementation.
MRDP, now on its second phase under an adaptable program loan (APL) of the World Bank (WB), is set to be undergo mid-term assessment early next month. [DA-MRDP/Sherwin B. Manual]
