VSU and 2 other SUCs ink MOA with DAR

The VSU, together with the Southern Leyte State University in Sogod, Southern Leyte and the University of Eastern Philippines in Catarman, Northern Samar entered recently into an agreement with the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) on separate occasions as partners in improving the lives of the agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) in Region-8 under the Agrarian Reform Community Connectivity and Economic Support Services (ARCCESS) project.

All three occasions were witnessed by DAR Regional Director Eliasem Castillo who disclosed that to effectively implement the ARCCESS project, DAR ties up with the accredited SUCs who could lend their expertise in conducting the needs and design assessments.

In the MOA, the SUCs will validate the capabilities of these organizations to venture such kind of activity and determine the factors that would help improve agricultural yield and eventually increase their income by conducting needs assessment.

Further, the SUCs are required to present plausible and feasible plans which will become the basis for DAR in the provision of the necessary common service facilities that would make a viable agri-enterprise ARB organization.

According to Castillo, the agribusiness activities of registered ARB organizations are strengthened by providing the needed common service facilities and the technical assistance to be provided by the professional service providers.

Initially, Castillo added, DAR has identified one project proposal for every congressional district involving 53 ARB organizations throughout the region that have already been approved and will be funded under ARCCESS.

These project proposals, according to him, include rice, organic vegetable, sugarcane and cassava productions and marketing.

Castillo explained that this project was conceptualized by Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes to enhance the delivery of support services to agrarian reform beneficiaries under the Program Beneficiaries Development (PBD) component of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).