Marawi City – Farmers have finally started cultivating some 2,000 hectares of farmlands following the  construction of a new 3.2-kilometer farm-to-market road across three agricultural towns in Lanao del Sur, local officials announced Monday.

Operators of a fleet of heavy equipment from the Provincial Engineering Office found enthusiasm in fast-tracking the road construction while seeing resident-farmers tending their rice lands that had remained idle for decades due to lack of access roads, Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Alonto-Adiong Jr. said.

The fresh road cuts through farmlands along the lakeshores of Ditsaan-Ramain, Bubong and Buadipuso-Buntong towns.

As this developed, leaders of resident farmers have proposed the naming of the road as “Gov. Mamintal Adiong Sr. Boulevard” in tribute to the incumbent governor’s late father, who originally planned the project before his death in 2005.

Two teams of workers started working on both ends of the 3.2-kilometer road late last June or few days before the release in early July of the P15-million share of the provincial government from the P1-billion infrastructure fund of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) this year, Adiong said.

Adiong said P10-million of the fund supplemented the local funds used by the provincial government on the road project.

While the remaining P5 million was allotted for the rehabilitation of equally vital roads in Wao town, he said.

The 3.2-kilometer road project will be completed within this month or in early September, but it will be fully opened to traffic after the construction of a steel bridge over the Ramain River that cuts the road in the middle, he said.