Preparations up for first BARMM agri master plan
Credit to Author: EIREENE JAIREE GOMEZ| Date: Tue, 09 Jul 2019 17:01:22 +0000
AGRICULTURE Secretary Emmanuel Piñol, who was recently directed to head the Mindanao Development Authority, is gearing up for the creation of the first Agriculture and Fisheries Master Plan of the newly-formed Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
President Duterte recently confirmed Piñol will be leaving the Department of Agriculture (DA) to stir things up for the BARMM, which just crafted a new political entity under the Bangsamoro Organic Law.
In a statement on Monday, Piñol said the DA would facilitate the stakeholders’ meeting in the region which would include leaders of farmers and fishermen’s groups, people’s organizations, development planners, agriculturists, engineers and local officials.
About 300 participants, including those coming from the distant and isolated islands of BARMM, are expected to join the activity on July 11 and 12, he said.
“With the technical and administrative assistance from the DA and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Agrarian Reform (Mafar), the stakeholders will identify the interventions needed to improve the lives of people in the country’s poorest region,” Piñol said.
At the recent pre-planning meeting between the DA and Mafar in General Santos City, Piñol said leaders of BARMM agreed to prioritize ways to increase farm production in the region while alleviating poverty incidence.
“[The agri master plan will] address chronic poverty and lower poverty level in the region where one of the provinces, Lanao del Sur, has poverty incidence of 70 percent,” he said.
Considered as an area with fertile soil and rich fishing grounds, BARMM is also set to be built with critical infrastructure services like rural roads and fish ports to hasten economic growth, Piñol said. He said he will push for the establishment of food security plan “which would make the region self-reliant thus ensuring available and affordable food.”
The completed draft plan will be presented to BARMM Chief Minister Al Haj Ahod Murad Ebrahim. It will be submitted to Duterte before his delivery of the State of the Nation Address on July 22.
“The Master Plan for Agriculture and Fisheries will be the first ever to be crafted for the Bangsamoro region whose development was stunted by decades of conflict and bloodshed,” Piñol said.
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