SRA Administrator Gina Martin said they are encouraging agrarian reform beneficiaries to engage in block farming so that the farms distributed by the government can continue to be productive.
Martin said that block farming is the same as cooperative. “The only difference is there is a memorandum of agreement that a farm manager will oversee the farm,” she said.
She said that there are 16 block farms in Negros Occidental, and a block farm should have at least 30 hectares.
“Negros Occidental produces 50 percent of the total volume of the sugar produced in the country,” Martin stressed.
Martin is also urging the provincial government to push for block farming among the agrarian reform beneficiaries.
The block farming scheme stemmed after SRA found out that 90 percent of sugarcane farms in the country have areas of 10 hectares of less.
Vice Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson, for his part, said that board members can help facilitate and encourage the farm beneficiaries to bundle up together “because if you cut the farm into one hectare per farmer it becomes less productive.”
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