M'danao sugar farmers dispute DAR claims

Mindanao sugar farmers disputed yesterday claims by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) that they are unproductive in the management of their farms and that the comprehensive agrarian reform program is not the main reason for their ineffectivity.

Ernesto Rabanzo, president of the Samahang Sugarcane Planters Inc. of Digos in Davao, said claims by DAR Undersecretary Conrado Navarro that CARP has resulted in productivity among beneficiaries defies all the principles of economics.

Rabanzo challenged Navarro to produce facts and figures to attest to the veracity of his statistics and the percentage of CARP beneficiaries who are successful in their respective areas.

He noted that if some sugar producers are indeed unproductive, then CARP is to blame 'since it is like a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.'

"Which planter in his right mind would invest several millions of pesos to purchase tractors and other farm equipment when tomorrow, they may no longer be the owners of their lands," he said.

According to Regencio Relacio, president of the Free Planters Producers Cooperative Inc., also of Digos, CARP is a regressive measure and a major deterrent to productivity. "It may be good on paper but not it reality," he noted.

Relacion emphasized that sugar farmers are not against CARP but noted that even before confiscating private lands, government should first give away its idle lands. Sugar farmers are proposing that the implementation of CARP be suspended until such time that the law is reviewed and amended to make it more attuned with the times.

Renato Tabucan, manager of the Mindanao Sugarcane Planters Cooperative, said that it is only through sizeable hectareage of sugar farms that mechanization and the use of other forms of modern equipment can be used to make sugar lands productive.

In a related development, the Sagay-Escalante Planters Association, endorsed the stand of the National Federation of Sugarcane Farmers (NFSP) that a moratorium on CARP be implemented.

Angel Severino, association president, said CARP has been a dismal failure since government does not provide the necessary infrastructure and capitalization for the beneficiaries.

He noted that a good number of CARP beneficiaries are delinquent not only with their bank loan payments, but have also failed to pay their local and land taxes because of problems with land productivity.

Severino said that while the catchwords today are globalization, productivity and viability, the implementation of the CARP law is a backward step and does not conform with the principle of economies of scale.