THE Department of Agriculture (DA) is seeking the use of indigenous peoples’ (IP) ancestral land for food production to shore up food security during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak.
Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar urged the indigenous peoples (IPs) to convert part or most of their idle land to farm vegetables and high-value crops.
“Our IPs can also consider going into diversified farming systems, integrating vegetable and livestock raising, that will provide them not only a continuous source of food, but also a source of additional income,” Mr. Dar said.
Mr. Dar added substantial funding is available from the DA to support enhanced food production on ancestral land.
“It forms part of the Duterte administration’s P31-billion Plant, Plant, Plant Program, where we will, among other projects, intensify the promotion of urban and community agriculture as one of the interventions to help ensure availability of and access to food nationwide,” Mr. Dar said.
According to the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), IPs occupy about 7.7 million hectares or 26% of the country’s total land area of 30 million hectares.
As of 2019, the NCIP has issued 243 certificates of ancestral domain title, covering an area of 5.7 million hectares. Some 1.3 million IPs have been certified as rights holders.
Mr. Dar said that the IPs can grow ampalaya, asparagus, cabbage, cassava, garlic, ginger, mungbean, papaya, peanut, sweet potato, and tomato.
“Aside from profitable types of vegetables — like onion, string beans, potato, carrots, pineapple, garlic, cauliflower, and watermelon — our brother IPs can grow cacao, coffee, abaca or black pepper, or they may go into raising native pigs and free-range chicken,” Mr. Dar said. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave
