DAR programme teaches business skills to Pangasinan farmers

DT | DAR programme teaches business skills to Pangasinan farmers | CALASIAO, Pangasinan – Through the Department of agricultural Reform’s (DAR) Farm Business School Project, 25 farmers from this town who have benefited from agricultural reform are learning how to run their own businesses.

In an interview on Tuesday, Romeo Lopez, the owner of Lopez Farm School, said that the farmers who take part in the programme are learning how to make a business out of farming and improve not only their farming and business skills but also how much money they make.

“Our main goal is to help them become businesspeople so that their farms can make money,” he said. “The DAR people teach them the technical stuff, and we show them how to use what they’ve learned in real life.”

The classes are held twice a month on Saturdays, and during the whole-day sessions, the attendees get free food.

To graduate, the farmers have to go to a total of 25 training classes and turn in all of the necessary paperwork.

Most of the beneficiaries are members of Aliguas Dumaralos na Buenlag, Inc., an agrarian reform beneficiaries’ group based in Barangay Buenlag. Others are from priority towns in the Seor Divino Tesoro Agrarian Reform Community in Calasiao town.

The DAR-Pangasinan provincial office said in a statement on Tuesday that the Farm Business School Project is meant to help farmers improve their skills. It is based on a Food and Agriculture Organization-recommended programme that teaches farmers how to be traders and run businesses.

The DAR did the same project in the towns of Sta. Barbara and San Fabian in 2016, in the city of Urdaneta and the town of Asingan in 2018, in the town of Alcala in 2019, and in the town of Bautista in 2021.

There have been 204 farmers who have finished the classes. (via PNA)