Land Use Conversion and its Socio-Economic Impact to the Farmers Section in Cabanatuan City, Province of Nueva Ecija

Abstract

In the national scene, the pace by which agricultural lands are being converted into uses of non-agricultural orientation despite ‘supposedly existing government land reform measures is going on at an alarming rate. Current agrarian trends tend to point to fast track dispossession of farmers of their lands under a regime that aggressively pushes an economic agenda onwards of its so-called industrialization. Land reform reversals and widespread, indiscriminate land conversions are even facilitated by government policies that serve only as legal backup to favor a few landed interests. If at all, government's track only strengthens and expands existing land ownership monopoly against a backdrop of severe landlessness and massive poverty. This is very much apparent too in Cabanatuan City. in the Province of Nueva Ecija. ‘Although moving on a gradual tempo. it is being ensued effectively amidst the pitiful and seemingly age-old outcry of the landless farmers for genuine land distribution measures. With the aid of the inherent loopholes of the laws and policies pertaining to agricultural lands, malls, subdivisions, and even life-size playgrounds such as golf courses, are changing the green landscape of one of the main rice grain producers in Central Luzon. The =. populous tilling class then is riddled with the problems of socially prejudiced premises for reclassification of agricultural lands, displacement, loss of livelihood, and “detriment of self-esteem due to seemingly inevitable subjugation to the urban poor class. The hypothesis is that land use conversion despite the argued idea that it purports to bring greater return of investments for the city from the more humane aspect it still has a negative impact to the farmers sector. Aside from the fact that it supports the nuisance of the: ‘trickle-down’ of wealth concept that as was debated ‘possible’, land use conversion promotes. an increase in both the poverty and unemployment incidences. Fifty respondents all of which are victims of the said phenomenon were used herein aid their responses, qualified through descriptive research methods.