The Department of Agrarian Reform in Negros Occidental is hitting only about 10 percent of its targeted land distribution by the end of this year, an official of the agency in the province said.

Provincial Agrarian Reform Officer for northern Negros Occidental Igmedio Tabianan said Monday that their target is to distribute at least 17,000 hectares of land to these beneficiaries by the end of 2013.

However, as of this month, they only distributed a total of about 1,700 hectares.

"It's way below our target but we, in cooperation with the Land Bank of the Philippines, are now hastening the conduct of survey on about 9,000 hectares of land which is up for distribution this year", Tabianan told the DAILY STAR.

DAR-Negros Occidental records show that, as of this year, there are at least 5,000 Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries in the province and some of them are yet to receive their Certificate of Land Ownership Awards.

At the agency's anniversary celebration last month, DAR distributed Certificate of Land Ownership Awards to 1,134 farmer beneficiaries covering 1,526.25 hectares and 53 land holdings.

Of that number, 836 were from northern Negros Occidental who received 1,312.05 hectares of land, while the rest are from the southern part of the province who were recipients of 214.2 hectares.

In his visit to Bacolod City last month DAR Undersecretary Jerry  Facturan said, most of the lands distributed under the administration of President Benigno Aquino III are private agricultural lands, while in the last 20 years of CARP, what had been distributed by past administrations were government-owned lands.

Facturan added that that Negros Occidental has the widest CARP coverage in the entire country is the reason why DAR assigned an assistant regional director and two Provincial Agrarian Reform Officers in the province to fast track land distribution before the funding for acquisition and distribution of the agricultural lands stops next year.*APN

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