With
a population of 23,858, the Municipality of President
Quirino, Sultan Kudarat, Central Mindanao is a
fourth-class town and is considered the most depressed
of the 12 municipalities that make-up the province of
Sultan Kudarat, with almost 70 percent of its 20,858
hectares devoted to small-scale agriculture.
Farmers in the area are able to plant and harvest all
year round because of good weather. The province of
Sultan Kudarat, with over 530 hectares devoted to
sugarcane, ranks third in the Philippines in terms of
land area devoted to muscovado sugar production. Its
share of the country’s total production went up from 22
percent in 2001 to 23 percent in 2002 and 26.86 percent
in 2003.
The Local Government of President Quirino approved SB
Resolution 2005-112-10 last Nov. 23, 2005 mandating the
formulation of the President Quirino Muscovado Sugar
Master Plan.
The Philippine Development Assistance Programme, Inc. (PDAP)
was founded in 1986 and started as a consortium of
Filipino and Canadian NGOs to become an effective
instrument in reducing poverty and inequity in the
Philippines.
The first of the three phases of the PDAP Program dealt
with social credit, agricultural productivity, and
livelihood projects. These interventions were continued
until PDAP Phase II, which later on expanded to include
major thematic areas such as Sustainable Agriculture and
Central Loan Fund.
Gearing on a higher phase, PDAP’s Promoting
Participation in Sustainable Enterprises (PPSE) attuned
its interventions on community empowerment and on
scaling up of identified successful rural enterprises
implemented from 1997 to 2004.
In PDAP’s new program entitled Promoting Rural
Industries and Market Enhancement (PRIME), the level of
engagement with communities has moved to a higher
juncture. The main objective of the program is to build
and strengthen rural enterprising communities to engage
the market in order to generate employment and improve
the quality of life of people though their involvement
in small and medium enterprises focused on organic and
natural products.
The Asia-Japan Partnership Network for Poverty Reduction
(AJPN) is a consortium of national and regional NGO
networks and civil society organizations working
actively on various poverty reduction initiatives. It
aims to promote and contribute to the reduction by half
of the Asian people living in poverty by 2015 and to
improve quality of life.
AJPN thrives on the commitment of Asian and Japanese
NGOs to exchange information and collaborate in
implementing field-level initiatives while linking this
to policy advocacy work. It promotes the use of
participatory approaches in the development of
site-specific interventions as perceived by the
communities themselves.
AJPN focuses its interventions on three program areas,
namely: sustainable agriculture, micro finance and basic
education and human resource development.
The Sustainable Agriculture Grassroots Action
Multi-Purpose Cooperative (SAGA) is an organization of
development workers, members of the academe, youth,
artists, scientists and technical workers supportive of
and advocating for sustainable agriculture, healthy
living and preservation of the environment.
In addition to undertaking research, SAGA provides
consultancy, marketing and technical services. It has
initiated preliminary work for the export of organic
rice and muscovado sugar.
SAGA believes that sustainable agriculture is a viable
alternative for resource-poor farmers and is a mechanism
in addressing poverty and inequity.
Philippines
March 2006
This study was
Undertaken by the Sustainable Agriculture Grassroots
Action Multi-purpose Cooperative
With
a population of 23,858, the Municipality of President
Quirino, Sultan Kudarat, Central Mindanao is a
fourth-class town and is considered the most depressed
of the 12 municipalities that make-up the province of
Sultan Kudarat, with almost 70 percent of its 20,858
hectares devoted to small-scale agriculture.