True to the adage "In unity there is strength," cooperatives are effective mechanisms in empowering the rural poor, especially individual farm and fisher folks, who currently represents 70 percent of Filipinos living below the poverty threshold, Pagdanganan said.
Pagdanganan, who propelled Bulacan into a hub of successful cooperatives when he served as its governor for three terms, aired optimism on cooperatives as a potent tool in the reduction of poverty incidence and in promoting social equity.
"Cooperatives, which are borne out of the shared resources and efforts of individual members, ensures the democratization of access to physical and resource assets, namely land and credit that leads to socially equitable agriculture, the foundation for rural development," he added.
Pagdanganan foresees that cooperatives from the countryside, particularly from the incipient and thriving ARCs which the Department of Agrarian Reform formed to optimize the allocation and use of limited resources and create an impact on the lives of farmer-beneficiaries, will soon attain a critical mass, unprecedented and potentials-laden in terms of agricultural productivity, agribusiness enterprises and agro-industrial industrialization.
The DAR chief said "this sense of our nation’s future abloom with robust cooperatives is not wishful thinking considering the veritable transformation of ARBs in the various ARCs into self-reliant entrepreneurs and managers as a result of a package of support services like capacity and institutional building, credit access, infrastructure facilities, technology training and marketing."