At least 227 corn farmers in Carmen, North Cotabato have received indemnity checks for damage incurred in the recent cropping season, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) said Monday.

DAR and the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC) released the checks to farmer beneficiaries with a combined amount of PHP708,515 over the weekend.

Cheryll Camariñas, Carmen’s municipal agrarian reform program officer, said the agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) filed for claims under PCIC’s Free Insurance Coverage and were listed in the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture.

Rosemary Calawigan, a corn farmer from Barangay Kimadzil, said she received PHP9,000.

“The amount we received will allow us to buy inputs and restart another cropping after we failed in the previous cropping season,” Calawigan said in the vernacular.

Aside from the village of Kimadzil, the other ARB beneficiaries are from Malapag, Palanggalan, Aroman, Bentangan, Kibenes, Ranzo, Tunganon, Tupig, Liliongan, Macabenban, and Poblacion. (PNA)