By Manny Piñol
Farmers and fishermen’s associations and cooperatives could now easily borrow money from government to buy farm tractors and other machinery while fishermen could buy ice-making equipment at 2% interest every year payable in 8 years.
The Department of Agriculture, through the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) Governing Board, on Tuesday, Jan. 15, opened a new program called Agriculture and Fisheries Machinery and Equipment (AFME) Loan Program with an initial fund of P400-M.
This will now allow farmers and fisherfolks to buy equipment and facilities which the DA could not provide them under the regular programs because of lack of funds and also because these are not included in the government approved list of equipment.
The first beneficiaries of this loaning program would be a group of fishermen from Salay, Misamis Oriental who applied for a P10-M loan so they could buy a 20-ton fishing boat, an ice-making equipment and a refrigerated truck to bring their catch to the market.
The others are farmers’ associations who would like to buy a complete set of agricultural machinery like tractors, transplanters and harvesters so they could act as the service providers in their towns.
About 100 fishermen’s associations have also applied for loans to buy ice-flakes making equipment and cold storage so they could reduce their post-harvest losses estimated at about 40% of their catch and allow them to bring their produce to the market.
The AFME is the latest variant of the DA’s Easy Access Credit Program which allows agriculture and fisheries stakeholders to borrow money without the usual hassles and stringent requirements of the banks.
While the loans will be released through established government banks, cooperative banks, rural banks and reliable cooperatives, these will be governed by guidelines set by the DA-ACPC aimed at facilitating access to credit for greater productivity and less post-harvest losses.
The Easy Access Credit Program was launched under the administration of President Rody Duterte with the PUNLA or Program for Unified Lending in Agriculture.
The PUNLA consolidated all available loan funds being offered by government through the banks which farmers and fisherfolks could not access because of stringent requirements.
When I became Secretary of Agriculture, I discovered over P5-B in loan funds which were just sleeping in the banks and were not being accessed because very few people knew these were available.
Following the design of the PUNLA, the Production Loan Easy Access (PLEA) Credit Program and the Survival and Recovery (SURE) Loan Program were launched.
PLEA offers a production loan to a farmer or fisherman payable in a period to be determined by his activity at 6% interest.
His project is automatically covered by the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC).
The PLEA has released P1.6-B since its launching on June 23, 2017 in Malimono, Surigao del Norte and now has a national repayment rate of 91%, down from 97% following a series of calamities and typhoons which affected agriculture and fisheries.
SURE, on the other hand, offers a No-Collateral, No-Interest loan of up to P25,000 payable in three years to farmers and fishermen whose livelihood was destroyed or affected by calamities and disasters.
Both loaning programs have shown very positive results with the PLEA program registering 100% repayment rates in several areas, notably the Cordillera and in Surigao del Norte.
(Photos of the ACPC Governing Board meeting on Tuesday were taken by Diane Faith Garcia while the photo of the ice-making equipment was downloaded from a public website.)
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