The Department of Agriculture, including its regional offices, bureaus, agencies and corporations attached to it, will soon establish a new unit to assist farmers, fishermen and stakeholders prepare project proposals for funding and support.
Early today, I signed a Memorandum which becomes effective Dec. 12, 2016, directing all offices under the DA to create a unit in their offices to assist stakeholders.
I have named this unit as ALAMM or Alalay sa Magsasaka at Mangingisda Office. This will be fully operational by January 2017, after the holidays.
The recommendation to create this unit came from the Philippine Council for Agriculture and Fisheries which is composed by representatives of stakeholders groups all over the country now headed by Executive Director Sarah Cayona.
The proposal is a result of the concern which I have repeatedly expressed during public consultations and meetings on the failure of government to extend a helping hand to farmers and fisher folks who are asking for projects from the DA.
Every day, since I assumed office as Secretary of Agriculture, I would receive countless messages sent to my mobile phone and Facebook page from farmers, fishermen, overseas Filipino workers and agriculture and fisheries stakeholders asking for help to start a livelihood project.
Honestly, I find it difficult to respond to all of these messages and give the senders advices on how to ask for assistance from the Dept. of Agriculture to start their projects.
By not being able to respond, I feel pity to those who really need help from the DA on how to start their projects.
This has always been the problem of farmers, fishermen and small stakeholders.
They have beautiful proposals and the DA has the funds to support these but since they do not know how to present their ideas, they end up getting nothing from government.
With the creation of ALAMM, farmers, fisher folks and stakeholders will only have to go to the different DA offices, regional units, bureaus and attached corporations and relate what they would like to propose.
The staff of ALAMM assist them in making project proposals, including loan proposals under the PUNLA program of the Agriculture Credit Policy Council (ACPC) or government financing institutions like the Agricultural Competetiveness Enhancement Fund (ACEF), Land Bank and Development Bank of the Philippines.
ALAMM is expected to enlighten farmers, fishermen and other stakeholders on what assistance and support they could get from government.
(Photo of the memorandum creating ALAMM taken by Diane Faith Garcia. All other photos downloaded from Google.)
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