By Manny Piñol
“Don’t tell me how educated you are; Tell me how much you have travelled.” – Prophet Mohammad.
Once again, it is proven that travel enriches one’s knowledge and broadens his appreciation of the realities in life.
On Thursday, as I stared at the flooded areas in Carmen, Davao del Norte and Bunawan, Agusan del Sur, I asked myself how the farmers affected by the floods would be able to survive until the next harvest season.
In Bunawan, Agusan del Sur, for example, where floodwaters from the overflowing rivers of the province have submerged an estimated 50,000 hectares of farm lands, it would take another four months at the least for the farmer to make his first harvest.
And that is if he is able to avail of planting materials right after the floods subside.
In the meantime, he could either ask for loans from relatives and friends or from the neighbourhood trader or middleman who will of course demand that the farmers’ future produce is delivered to him, not to mention the stiff interest rates.
With this reality, the farmer will never be able to recover and he will forever be mired in extreme debt and poverty.
Realizing this, I immediately called up the head of the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC), Jocelyn Badiola, to ask her if the ACPC could design an emergency survival and recovery loan program for farmers affected by calamities.
ACPC is an agency under the Dept. of Agriculture which designs loaning programs for agriculture and fisheries and also has the funds to be extend as loans.
Recently, ACPC launched the PUNLA program which extends non-collateralized loans of up to P150,000 per applicant farmer and fisherman payable in two years with an interest of 6% per year.
I shared with her my thoughts on Survival and Recovery Loan Program (SURE) to include:
– A two package emergency loan program which would be available only for farmers and fishermen affected by calamities like typhoons, floods, landslides, infestation, fire and drought.
– First package will be the survival package which will provide a loan of P10,000 part of which will be given in the form of two sacks of rice and four boxes of canned goods.
– Second package will be the recovery package which will involve fertilisers and farm inputs amounting to another P10,000. As counterpart, the Dept. of Agriculture will provide the seeds and planting materials for free, including equipment and machineries if needed by the farmers’ group.
– Both packages will be interest free but the conduit bank or credit cooperative which will handle the loaning program will be entitled to a one-time service fee of 3%.
– The loans will be interest free and collateral free and will be payable in two years. The only stringent requirement would be the validation of the loan applicant as a real farmer with a farm area which could be the source of income to be able to repay his loan.
This idea came to my mind because for so long farmers and fisher folks affected by calamities have largely been left on their own to recover from their losses.
In the last 7-month El Niño which dried up the land, three farmers in my home province of North Cotabato were shot and killed during a rally in Kidapawan City where they asked for rice assistance from government.
I believe it is time for government to realise that while food assistance during calamities helps people in distress, seeing hungry farmers and fishermen queuing up like beggars is demeaning.
This is the sight which President Rody Duterte abhors because he does not like to see people begging for food.
With the DA’s Survival and Recovery (SURE) Loan Program for farmers and fisher folks affected by calamities, I believe we will restore the dignity of these most neglected members of society.
On Monday Jan. 30, ACPC chief Badiola will present to me the blueprint of this Survival and Recovery Loan Program which once approved will be implemented immediately with the provinces recently affected by floods as the Pilot Areas.
Once more, another program is designed based on the problems I saw in the field in another tiresome but rewarding “Biyaheng Bukid.”
(Photos by John Pagaduan and Al Jacalan, Dept. of Agriculture.)
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