First of two parts
By Daniel Dickinson
Trust built on decades of respect for religion has fertilized the seeds of success for two communities, one Muslim the other Christian, which have joined together to build a successful rice growing cooperative in the Philippines.
The cooperative Liton, Kibales, Magatos Irrigators Association (LKM-IA) has been supported by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) with funding from the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA).
The communities live just a few hundred meters apart close to Kabacan in Cotabato, central Mindanao island, an area which has seen separatist violence over many years and which is now moving towards a more significant level of self-rule by the Muslim majority.
Ahead of the International Day of Cooperatives marked annually on July 1, UN News’s Daniel Dickinson traveled to Kabacan and met two members of LKM-IA, treasurer Marcializa Calud, who is Christian and Mona Usman, a Muslim and who works as the auditor.
Marcializa Calud: The association began in 2015 with just P250 ($4) and last year our income was P1.65 million ($28,000). Careful planning and management have helped us to grow and this has been reinforced with support from KOICA and FAO including seeds fertilizers as well as machines.
Mona Usman: The association received machines for each step of the rice growing and harvesting process; a rotavator to plough the field, a combine harvester to bring in the crop and a milling machine to process the rice.
(To be continued) UN News
