Targeted rural credit!

BUKIDNON VEGETABLE FARMERS

GET P150-M LOAN FOR 3,000 HAS.

By Manny Piñol

Vegetable farmers from four cool mountain towns of Bukidnon Province in Mindanao will now have access to P150-million in easy access credit under the Department of Agriculture’s Production Loan Easy Access (PLEA), enough to develop 3,000-hectares of farms to produce high-value vegetables.

When I announced during a quick visit to Talakag town last Sunday that the DA-ACPC could grant a loan of P50,000 per hectare for vegetable production, there was an emotional reaction from the farmers, who for so many years have been in the stranglehold of traders who finance their farms at very high interest rates and buy their produce at ridiculously low prices.

Farmers association President Ryan Daño, an agriculture graduate who belongs to the indigenous Talaandig tribe of Bukidnon, cupped his face and shed a tear when he heard my announcement.

“I never thought this day would ever come,” he said in the local dialect.

Yesterday, Daño, along with Talakag Mayor Virgito Factura and four other officials, visited the Benguet Vegetable Trading Center in La Trinidad town to observe the operation of a vegetable trading center.

On Friday, I will be back in Talakag to turn over an initial P20-M loan to the Talakag Vegetable Farmers Association who will use it to buy its members’ produce which will be shipped to Metro Manila.

Four farm tractors, 15 work animals, seeds and other farm inputs will also be turned over to the farmers’ association.

Joining me on Friday will be Undersecretary Jose Gabriel La Viña of Agribusiness and Marketing, USEC Evelyn Laviña for High Value Crops, ACPC Executive Director Jocelyn Badiola, Planters Products Chairman Domingo Duerme and DA Region X Director Carlene Collado.

The estimated weekly shipment of vegetables including Carrots, Cabbage, White Potato, Cauliflower and Brocolli is between 40 to 60 metric tons.

The prices of vegetables in Talakag are much lower than in the market in Metro Manila with Carrots at P55 per kilo, White Potato P30 per kilo, Cabbage at P20 per kilo and Cauliflower and Brocolli both at P50 per kilo.

The DA will facilitate the shipment by providing refrigerated vans which will be brought to Manila on a weekly basis.

Three other Bukidnon towns – Impasugong, Lantapan and Sumilao – are expected to participate in the vegetable production program.

The development of an estimated 50,000-hectares of farms in the four towns is part of the strategic vegetable production program of the DA to ensure sustained supply of vegetables in the market, especially Metro Manila, during the rainy and typhoon season in Luzon.

Recently, prices of vegetables in the market in Metro Manila spiked after a series of storms hit the vegetable production areas in the Cordillera.

The PLEA, a program managed by the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) and launched June 23 last year, has been identified by the Philippine Statistics Authority as one of the two programs of the DA which has contributed to reducing rural poverty by increasing farm productivity.

The PLEA, which charges a 6% interest on a No-Collateral Production using rural banks and credit organizations as conduits, has released about P1-B in production loans since it was launched in Malimono, Surigao del Norte on June 23, 2017.

The repayment rate is 98% with the vegetable farmers of the Cordillera Provinces registering a perfect 100% repayment for their P46-M loan.

(Photos showing surprise and disbelief by Talakag farmers were taken by Diane Faith Garcia. Other photos show the farmers in the forum conducted in Talakag last Sunday and the way they pack and transport their vegetables to the market.)