“It’s a devious scheme favoring business interests of big sugar barons,” said the Unyon ng mga Mangggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) in a statement issued yesterday, as it expressed suspicion it is also a plot to raise funds for the administration Liberal Party for next year’s elections.
Sugar block farms are consolidation of small farms covering 30 to 50 hectares purported for plantation-scale production.
“But essentially, block farms are designed to re-concentrate lands back to landlords and their dummies acting as farm managers,” said UMA acting Chair John MIlton Lozande.
Lozande said the “multi-billion budget will benefit only President Aquino’s kin and other big hacienderos and sugar barons, probably including the Liberal Party and its allies.”
Lozande noted reports that the three government agencies signed recently “a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for a convergence program on the local sugarcane development program.”
The DAR recently announced that it will provide P424.6-million assistance for sugar block farms. The SRA, meanwhile, allocated P30 million for block farms on top of the DA’s P1.7 billion block farm budget sourced through the General Appropriations Act of 2015 and the Sugar Industry Development Act (SIDA).
Lozande said agricultural workers are not convinced the project would benefit them as claimed by the government. “Only the hacienderos and sugar barons would receive funds from these government agencies because they control the block farms. Even the funding for farm equipment and farm to market roads, which we all know is mired in corruption, could be used by the ruling party for next year’s presidential elections,” he stressed.
In a statement, UMA said “the haciendero government of Aquino is most insensitive in publicizing the allocation of billions of pesos in public funds for landlords, while the thousands of farmworkers are currently mired in poverty and hunger due to ‘tiempo muerto’ or dead season, when the sugarcane industry temporarily grinds to a halt for a period
of 4-6 months while waiting for the next milling season.”
Lozande said that in Negros island, thousands of farmworkers under UMA’s local affiliate, the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) conducted a series of protests since July to highlight their plight during tiempo muerto. Lozande is also the secretary-general of NFSW.
The DAR meanwhile said that for a three-year period, it would fund 99 block farms nationwide including 10 in Hacienda Luisita. “With this plan, the DAR alone is allocating a hefty average of P4.288 million per block farm. What more the funds coursed through the SRA and DA?” asked Lozande.
“Under block farming, agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) only retain ownership of the lands in paper while they are rehired as farmworkers. Block farming enjoys financing schemes much like various Agribusiness Ventures Agreements (AVAs) such as joint-venture, contract growing, leaseback and others,” said Lozande.
He said “majority of sugar cane farms supposedly distributed under the bogus Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) are already back in the hands of big hacienderos and sugar barons.”
“In Negros Occidental, 80 percent of the ARBs already had their lands entered into onerous lease agreements with the landlords or big sugar planters, while it is widely believed that most farmworker- beneficiaries in Hacienda Luisita have had their lot allocations leased to financier- dummies of the Cojuangco- Aquino family at a measly rate of P7,500 per .66 hectares per year,” he noted.
