NUVIARCO, Harvesting Gains Despite The Pandemic

          While the world confronts the pandemic, the women and men banana farmers of the farmers’ cooperative in Nueva Visayas, Mawab, Davao de Oro have been blessed with constant harvests of big and small gains like a watershed.

          Organizational resilience and a network of support from allies and stakeholders served as an effective shield for the Nueva Visayas Agrarian Reform Cooperative (NUVIARCO) as it faced head-on the onslaught of the Covid-19 crisis.

          “The COVID-19 pandemic has not beaten us hard economically as our farms had been planted with various crops before the COVID-19 pandemic happened”, said Jerry Sabay, the Chairperson of NUVIARCO. NUVIARCO was formerly the Dizon Farms Workers Cooperative. According to Sabay, a timely adoption of multiple cropping practices and organizational capacity-building helped keep the cooperative strong amid the global crisis.

          After eight years, the Registry of Deeds (ROD) of Tagum, Davao del Norte finally released individual land titles to all 146 members of the NUVIARCO cooperative last 2021. These land parcels were once part of the 256 hectare banana plantation formerly owned by Dizon Farms Incorporated. As part of land reform measures, Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs) were awarded 1.1 hectares each in 1998, although it was only in 2013 that NUVIARCO farmers applied for their individual land titles.

          But it was not always smooth sailing for NUVIARCO—a cooperative that was once shaken with division and low productivity. Sabay recalls how after the ARBs were awarded their land in 1998, the farmers had rented their farms to a company that paid them a measly Php 5,000.00 per hectare every year for 25 years. When the company’s banana crops were stricken by Panama disease, a fungus that causes the banana plant to wilt, the company rescinded the contract in 2017, after just five (5) years of operation.

          According to Rolando Torintera, a former member of the Provincial Agrarian Reform Committee (PARCOM) and Chairperson of Davao Fruits Banana Growers Agrarian Reform Cooperative (DFBGARC), another banana growers’ cooperative in Davao De Oro, “After the turn-over, the banana fields were abandoned and not a single crop was in sight.”

          Ultimately, the farmers attempted to convert their land into corn farms. But due to lack of capital investment, some were forced to sell their land. The cooperative was also shaken with organizational crisis as some members bolted-out and formed their separate organization. Fortunately, when the NUVIARCO formally enlisted the assistance of civil society organizations and the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) for individual survey, the tides started to turn.

Legal empowerment

          In 2017, NUVIARCO farmers partnered with the Initiatives for Dialogue and Empowerment through Alternative Legal Services, Inc. (IDEALS) to receive free legal assistance and join banana farmers from Davao de Oro in lobbying for fairer contracts for Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries. The assistance was as part of IDEALS’ Economic Rights Programme, which aims to promote fairer, sustainable, and equitable business practices in the Philippines, especially in the agriculture sector.

          Two years later, under the Gender Transformative and Responsible Agribusiness Investments in Southeast Asia (GRAISEA) project, farmers received financial and gender literacy trainings that delved on farmers’ economic rights and women’s empowerment in the agriculture sector.

          The partial release of a number of owner’s copies of their land titles was an important strategic gain for NUVIARCO members in their struggle to own land. Onlookers like Torintera have been awed at the cooperative’s impressive turn-around since then.

          “Previously every time we had a consultation with other Cooperatives, NUVIARCO was like a ‘basket case’ always reporting problems with their members and the awarded lands. But this new development is inspiring!,” said Torintera.

          Chairperson Sabay excitedly shared that from landless farmers, the cooperative members will finally enjoy full legal ownership of the lands they have been tilling for more than two decades.

          They have also begun small initiatives that tackle the needs of women farmers. NUVIARCO is now fully servicing level-2 potable water to its 146-household members. P

          These victories, of course, are still tempered with challenges. In the middle of the pandemic the farmers were dampened by the very low pick-up price of Cardava bananas, which is one of their crops. Whereas they were once pegged at Php 15.00 per kilo, buying prices dove to a bottom low of Php 5.00 in July. Sabay attributes this price decrease to the lack of students purchasing cooked banana products as snacks, as the pandemic shifted towards a blended learning approach which confined students at home.

          Another issue is the the 36-hectare site owned by the cooperative but quarried by powerful private individuals who are not members of NUVIARCO. They were waiting for the release of genuine land titles to reclaim and operate this site.

          Seemingly tired but not hopeless, NUVIARCO officers keep their hopes up and continue to look for opportunities to grow their farms. While the fight for land rights and fair work conditions may be a long and bumpy road, it is one they are willing to see through to the finish line.

(Mary Fe Baban-Arquiza, PhD, Davao City, Philippines).