Sunday, March 02, 2008 Farmers debunked Los Banos study on jathropa By Edmund B. Sestoso
SEVERAL militant farmer groups in Negros Oriental had debunked claims of an earlier study by a team from University of the Philippines Los Banos in Laguna, which favorably endorsed jathropa plantation and claimed that it will not affect food production.
Fermin S. Lorico, chairperson of the District Farmers Alliance (DFA) emphasized that the study itself is based on falsities and incorrect assumptions just to favor and legitimize the planting of jathropa in connivance with big businesses and the government to the detriment of the interest of the farmers.
He said the UP Los Banos study which claims that the land is only five percent arable is not true saying that the valley then was covered with Certificate of Stewardship Contract (CSC) and community based forest management (CBFM).
He said it is in this place where most of the farmers have depended on their livelihood.
The land was then intended for the benefit of the internal refugees in the 1990s.
He however admitted that while it is true that there are lands that were not cultivated by the farmers, it does not mean that it is not arable.
The non-cultivation, Lorico explained was due to the absence of government support services.
Worse, even the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has cancelled the CSC and CBFMA in the area, he said.
Lorico also pointed to an anomaly where there are vast tracts of the land in the valley under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (Carp), but are still inserted and included in the bio-fuels project.
The DFA chairperson also said the aggressive campaign on the jathropa plantation by the Teves family including the Tamlang Valley Agricultural Development Corporation is a scheme of land re concentration which is in effect subtly getting the lands from the farmers and creating back the system of hacienda rule.
Former Representative Herminio Teves (3rd district, Negros Oriental) serves as a co-author of the Bio-Fuels Act of 2006. Lorico said Teves has a direct business interest on it.
Lorico also pointed out that bio fuel itself is not an alternative fuel because it is land base. It also only serves as an additive to the existing gasoline and diesel.
Lorico said their group is now actively campaigning for the junking of the Biofuels Act because according to them it has affected much of the food security and livelihood of the farmers.
The farmers claim that its not the jathropa plantation that will resolve the farmers woes but the implementation of genuine agrarian reform.
