Farmers benefit from P2-M WFP project

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines - Abdullah, a corn farmer, and his neighbors, Ahmad and Sukarno, interpret as “good omen” the launching this week of the joint agricultural projects in the province of the United Nations (UN) and the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (DAF-ARMM).

Abdullah, 45, belongs to one of 33 peasant groups in the province that received P2 million worth of post harvest facilities- collapsible grains drying cases, hermetic cocoon-type storage bins and other post harvest facilities- from the UN’s World Food Program (WFP).

A father of five, 39-year-old Solaiman, also a corn farmer, said the distribution of the facilities by the WFP’s representative to the Philippines, Aomo Asaka Nyangara, and DAF-ARMM Regional Secretary Makmod Mending, Jr., complemented the efforts of the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to restore normalcy and address underdevelopment in Moro communities in Mindanao.

A big number of the peasants belonging to the 33 groups that received the farming facilities are either internally-displaced people (IDPs), or are members of the MILF, which signed a final peace deal, dubbed "Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro," with government last March 27 in Malacañang.

Residents of the neighboring Barangays Sifaran and Kurintem in Datu Odin Sinsuat town, located in the first district of the province, were just as delighted with Nyangara and Mending's having signed, prior to the distribution of the farming equipment in Cotabato City last April 8, a memorandum of agreement (MOA) binding their offices to cooperate in developing a 300-hectare corn farm in adjoining parcels of lands in the two barangays.

Siblings Amir and Alih, sons of a now old Moro rebel who fought the government in the 1970s, are even planning to tender for their family a simple “kanduli,” a traditional Moro thanksgiving banquet, to celebrate their barangay’s having been chosen as a site for the corn farm project.

“We ought to thank Allah, first and foremost, and the ARMM, and the United Nations for this gift,” a teary-eyed Alih said in the Maguindanaon dialect.

Nyangara and Mending’s signing of the MOA and dispersal of the agricultural facilities were held April 8 at the covered court of the DAF-ARMM’s office inside the 32-hectare regional government compound in Cotabato City, in the presence of local WFP personnel, officials of the 33 Moro farmers’ groups, and representatives of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Office.

Mending said the WFP will supply the Moro farmers with rice monthly, for four consecutive months, for them and their families to have enough food while waiting for their harvest.

The DAF-ARMM, on the other hand, will supply the farmers with corn seeds and other farming inputs, and extend to them  technical assistance needed to ensure bumper harvest.

“As the peace initiative is on, we want to support the food security for people in all ways and this is one way of supporting food and nutrition security for the people of Central Mindanao,” Nyangara said in a message during the launching of the project, apparently referring to the Mindanao peace process.

The government and the MILF, as stated in the Oct. 15, 2012 Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro, and the recently-signed CAB, are to mutually cooperate in restoring normalcy in Moro communities devastated by military-MILF hostilities in decades past.  

Local officials said the bilateral initiatives of the ARMM and the WFP would certainly become a showcase of how essential are “hands-on interventions" in generating livelihood opportunities for Moro peasant communities.

Various international donor outfits, and foreign peace advocacy and humanitarian organizations, have been helping the government and the MILF push the Mindanao peace process forward.

“We want to ensure that no child is malnourished and all pregnant and lactating women are provided with nutrient that is required,” Nyangara said, as he explained the humanitarian objectives of their operations in Moro communities.