INSTEAD of planting on their land awarded through the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, several beneficiaries are opting to lease their lots to a private company that wants to put up 50 small solar power plants in various parts of the country.
Farmers in Morong, Bataan, are looking at the offer by Sunnex Solar Powered Agri-Rural Communities Corporation (SC-Sparc) as a better opportunity to earn stable income than planting rice and vegetables, said Alfredo Dacula, chairman of the Morong Farmers Cooperative said.
“Its better. Farmers will have sure income compared to planting rice or vegetables,” Dacula said.
Seven hectares of farms awarded by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in Barangay Sabang will be used to produce 5 to 10 megawatts of electricity by SC Sparc as part of a memorandum of agreement entered into by the company with the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR).
According to Dacula, the farmers in Morong stand to earn a net income of P150,000 yearly for 20 years. This is a much better income for farmers, whose can earn only P60,000 to P80,000 a year from farming because it is done only during the rainy season and famr inputs are expensive.
SC-Sparc is a joint venture between Filipino investors and Sunconnect Capital BV, a part of Sunconnex group of companies based in the Netherlands.
The DAR will help facilitate lease agreements between SC-Sparc and agrarian reform beneficiaries. DAR Secretary Virgilio delos Reyes said the proposal to put up solar power plants offers an attractive rental package for farmers who are willing to lease out their farms.
Similarly, Eduardo de Leon, chairman of Macopa Multi-purpose Cooperative of San Jose, Mexico Pampanga said some of their farmers have agreed to lease their lands because production is low. Five hectares of lands owned by farmer-members of the cooperatives have already signed a lease agreement with SC Sparc.
Another solar power plant will be constructed in a 6.5 hectare farm owned by farmers in Palauig, Pampanga. Teofilo Inocencio, DAR Regional Executive Director in Region 3, said these were mostly unproductive land.
“In general, for our government, that will benefit the community as it will also address our power woes with minimum impact to our food security,” he said.
The partnership between the DAR and SC-Sparc is part of the government’s effort to provide cheaper and cleaner electricity, DAR Secretary Virgilio delos Reyes said.
Under the MOA signed between SC-Sparc and DAR, the company will enter into a long-term lease contract with ARBs for the use of the land over a period of 20 years, with rentals to be paid directly to the farmers who own the land. The farmers’ cooperatives will get a small percentage of the lease cost.
The SC-Sparc program will be beneficial not only to the farmer-beneficiaries but the communities who will be “energized” by clean energy from solar power, De los Reyes said.
To qualify as a site, DAR Undersecretary for Support Services Jerry Pacturan said the farmlands of agrarian reform beneficiaries will be prioritized in the selection process.
Pacturan said the area being eyed for the solar-powered plants should have a minimum of five hectares of open space. It should also be generally flat, unroductive, non-irrigated and not more than five kilometers from the nearest electrical substation with 69-kilovolt transmission lines. article source
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