Federation of Free Farmers

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Federation of Free Farmers
Headquarters Quezon City   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Affiliations Trade Union Congress of the Philippines   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

The Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) is an agricultural association in the Philippines.

Contents

History

The organization was founded on October 25, 1953, in Porac, Pampanga by Catholics with Christian democratic leanings, following the decline of communism in the Philippines. [1] [2] Its early recruitment efforts did not meet with substantial success. [2]

One of its founding members, Jeremias Montemayor, a lawyer, [3] developed an early plan for an agricultural cooperative organization called "Plows and Peace" which later developed into a plan for the organization. [4] Fernando Esguerra was another influential figure in FFF's early history. [5]

According to Roth, FFF was instrumental in passing a 1971 statute revising the government's approach to land reform. [6] In October 1971, 500 farmers affiliated with FFF occupied land allocated Central Mindanao University. [7]

Silliman argues that, as of 1980, FFF—unusually among agrarian organizations under the Marcos regime—was affiliated with the state. [8]

FFF was a member organization of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP) before IFAP's dissolution in 2010. [9]

Positions

Crater argues that the basic aim of FFF in its early years was to ensure that every peasant farmer was "the owner of a family-size farm". [10] Overholt suggests that FFF, as of the 1970s, was against "absentee landlords". [11]

Borras argues that FFF underwent a number of ideological transformations in the 1960s and 1970s. In his view, FFF was founded with "conservative" leanings, became briefly "radicalized" in the 1960s, and then, following the exit of the radical faction in the 1970s, returned to its ideological roots. [9]

Notes

  1. Crater 1959, p. 4.
  2. 1 2 Taruc, Peregrino M. (1981). "On Peasant Organizations". Philippine Sociological Review. 29 (1/4): 136. ISSN   0031-7810. JSTOR   23898427.
  3. Crater 1959, p. 5.
  4. Crater 1959, p. 2.
  5. Crater 1959, p. 6.
  6. Roth, David F. (September 1973). "The Deterioration and Reconstitution of National Political Parameters: The Philippines during the 1970s". Asian Survey. 13 (9): 819. doi:10.2307/2642761. JSTOR   2642761.
  7. Lao, Mardonio M. (1991). "Land Conflict at Central Mindanao University: October–December, 1971". Philippine Studies. 39 (3): 351–357. ISSN   0031-7837. JSTOR   42633262.
  8. Silliman, G. Sidney (June 1980). "The Philippine Court of Agrarian Relations in the Context of Martial Law". Asian Survey. 20 (6): 645. doi:10.2307/2643677. ISSN   0004-4687. JSTOR   2643677.
  9. 1 2 Borras, Saturnino M. (2010-09-29). "The Politics of Transnational Agrarian Movements". Development and Change. 41 (5): 787. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7660.2010.01661.x.
  10. Crater 1959, p. 11.
  11. Overholt 1976, p. 429.

Sources

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