New P2 billion farm-to-market road to be built in Sultan Kudarat

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December 12, 2025 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture (DA) plans to build a P2-billion farm-to-market road in Sultan Kudarat, a development effort that could open up tens of thousands of hectares of farmland currently isolated from commercial hubs.

In a statement yesterday, the DA said the proposed road network is part of a broader push to expand farm-to-market infrastructure across Mindanao, where large areas of productive land remain underutilized due to lack of access.

“Once we build it, like now, we want to put P2 billion into a single road in Sultan Kudarat that will open up 32,000 to 35,000 hectares of new farmland,” Tiu Laurel said in Filipino.

“These areas aren’t being used now because there’s simply no road,” he added.

The DA plans similar projects in the Liguasan Marsh, where up to 300,000 hectares could be made productive once road networks are in place.

The government agency said it also intends to install post-harvest facilities along these corridors, including cold storage units, dryers, silos and logistics links to ports and emerging agri-ports under the World Bank–funded Philippine Rural Development Project.

A dedicated FMR unit has been set up to manage the rollout, along with a transparency system that will track project progress using time-lapse cameras, a farm-to-market portal and agreements with farmer cooperatives.

Tiu Laurel acknowledged political challenges in allocating roads, noting that mayors, congressmen and senators often request projects in their constituencies even as the national master plan shows a 60,000-kilometer backlog and funding for only about 2,000 kilometers next year.