Author : Ferriol, Godofredo F.

Summary : The study was conducted among the members of tribal communities who were the recipients of an Upland Stabilization Program of (USP), a major component of the Palawan Integrated Area Development Project (PIADP), a foreign - assisted project in the province of Palawan, Philippines. It described the program components as percieved by the upland cultural minorities and established the relationships between the independent variables (predictors) with the program effect indicators such as farm productivity, level of income, level of living, and satisfaction in upland farming of the respondents. Data were gathered by means of an interview questionnaire using as respondents 215 members of the Tagbanua (51) and the Palawan (164) tribes in the three pilot sites of the USP. Results revealed, on the average, that the upland dwellers were middle age (36 years), had very low educational attainment, with five household members had been residing in their village for 23 years, had an upland farming experience of 15 years, owned an average upland property of 3.19 ha, and with an average annual income of P 15,153.90. They had "very high" aspirations for themselves, their families, and their respective communities. However, the level of living was found to "very low," although they were generally "satisfied" in upland farming. The program introduced 20 upland technologies, half which were adopted by the farmer-beneficiaries. Almost the whole cultivable area (1.89 ha) had been planted to bananas, fruit trees, rice and corn, giving the respondents an average farm productivity of P10,265.36. The USP, however, seemed to have failed to establish a viable farmers' organization in the three areas, although perceived the implementation of the components of the projects as generally useful. Moreover, they are not aware of the components of USP, the three sites where it was implemented, and the rationale for having a strong farmers' organizations in the area. But they were fully aware of the persons and the organizations/agencies that helped to implement the program. Out of 231 possible correlations between and among the independent variables (predictors) and the dependent variables (program effect indicators), 55.41 percent were found to be significant at 0.05 level. The four dependent variables (i.e., farm productivity, level of income, level of living and satisfaction in upland farming) were all highly associated with each other. Regression results revealed that education, size of farm of respondents inside and outside the USP, land use, participation, and perception have contributed significantly to farm productivity. Variables that contributed significantly to level of income were education, size of farm of respondents inside the USP, benefits derived from the USP, land use, and perception. On the other hand, education, size of farm inside and outside the USP, land use, adoption of the recommended technologies, participation, and perception contributed to the level of living of the respondents. Benefits derived from USP, adoption of the recommended technologies, participation, and perception contributed to the level of satisfaction of the respondents in upland farming. As a cultural minority, the Tagbanua are considered to be better off than the Palawanos in terms of farm productivity, level of income, and level of living. The level of satisfaction among these groups was found to be the same.