BAGUIO CITY, July 19(PIA) — The Department of Agriculture renewed its partnership with the Tebtebba Foundation to promote unity and peace and enhance countryside development.

Agriculture Secretary William Dar assisted by DA-Cordillera Regional Executive Director Cameron Odsey turned over seedlings, farm inputs and other agricultural support to Tebtebba Foundation founder and Executive Director Victoria Tauli Corpuz in a simple ceremony at the DA-CAR Field Office here last July 15.

The inputs given amounting to more than P150,000.00 include 1, 000 pieces of Arabica coffee seedlings, six bags of osmocote 14-14-14, 100 pieces of hermetic bag, five bags of 17+08+09, 3 MgO (Agroblen), five bags of 10+07+22, 2 MgO (Agroblen), and one unit of brush cutter.

Dar said the turnover of agricultural interventions to the Tebtebba Foundation symbolizes the renewal of partnership with the DA and the government to promote unity, peace, progress and development thru agricultural support to the people of the Cordillera being supported by the foundation.

“Andito po ang inyong Kagawaran ng Pagsasaka as your partner to promote unity, peace and progress and development so let us renew this partnership,” Dar said.

“With this official responsibility as the Cabinet Officer for Regional Development and Security [CORDS] to oversee the regional development, I will see to it that there are every chance and opportunity to accelerate progress in the region,” he added.

The Secretary pursues to elevate the partnership between the foundation with the very purpose of enhancing the country-side development much more utilizing agriculture and natural resources up to the next generation.

Tebtebba (Indigenous Peoples’ International Center for Policy Research and Education) is an indigenous peoples’ organization born out of the need for heightened advocacy to have the rights of indigenous peoples respected, protected and fulfilled worldwide. It advocates and works on the elaboration and operationalization of indigenous peoples’ sustainable and self-determined development.

The DA-CAR and Tebtebba Foundation already worked together in some projects in communities in the Cordillera region and the occasion is a symbol of the continued partnership to strengthen agricultural practices in the communities.

Odsey said this partnership is a continued effort of the DA which the Secretary wants to push further and ensure that the policy now of the whole of a nation approach should be practiced from national level to the regional and even to the grassroots level.

Corpuz thanked the DA for the agricultural support which she said will be given to their partner communities in the different parts of the Cordillera to ensure a more strengthened community thru agriculture. She said that the activity is the beginning of a bigger partnership and they are hoping that this would be sustained even beyond the CoVID-19 crisis. (JDP/RMC- PIA CAR)