DA rolls out farm dev’t strategy for Samar Island

TACLOBAN CITY, Sept. 10 (PNA) - In compliance with Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol’s marching order to cut poverty incidence in Samar Island in two years’ time to at least 25 percent, the Special Area for Agricultural Development (SAAD) is now set in motion for the entire island of Samar.

Newly installed DA Assistant Secretary Lerey A. Panes spearheaded the series of orientation briefings held in the capital towns of the three Samar Provinces. 

SAAD is a comprehensive program focusing on the country's ten priority provinces. In its early phase, it will assess the strengths and weaknesses of an area and its potentials in food production.

SAAD program has been proven successful in North Cotabato, when Piñol was still the governor for nine years.

An initial budget of Php 20 million per province has been earmarked by the Duterte administration to bankroll the small livelihood projects that will be chosen and prioritized by the farmer and fisherfolk beneficiaries themselves.

The project follows the bottom-up participatory approach of planning, implementation and monitoring of selected projects.

Along this line, a series of orientation-briefing targeting the governors, mayors, the provincial and municipal development planning officers, the agricultural extension workers and farmer-leaders have been conducted in Catarman, Northern Samar (Aug. 18); Catbalogan City, Samar (Sept. 1) and Borongan, Eastern Samar (Sept. 2).

To sustain the renewed hope, some follow through activities were immediately lined up, which included the holding of strategic planning workshop and social preparations to be conducted initially within the remaining months of the current year.

Said strategic planning workshops are slated in the following specific dates: Northern Samar – Sept. 20-22; Samar – Sept. 27-29 and Eastern Samar – Oct. 4-6.

Northern Samar Governor Jose Ong, Samar Governor Sharee Ann Tan delos Santos, and Eastern Samar Governor Conrado Nicart have expressed their all-out support for SAAD since it offers assistance not only to groups of farmers, but to individual and farmer households as well.

With SAAD’s roll out, it is expected that the three provinces, which are currently among the top 10 poorest of the poor provinces, will soon be lifted out from the list. (PNA)
RMA/SQM/DA REGION 8-PR/EGR