Two towns in the country, one a poor fishing town in Surigao del Norte and the other a progressive farming municipality in Nueva Ecija, will serve as the pilot areas of the Production Loan Easy Access (PLEA) program of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.
Malimono, Surigao del Norte, a town with a poverty incidence of 90% confronted with problems of insurgency with the presence of the New People’s Army (NPA), and Bongabon, Nueva Ecija, the acknowledged onion farming capital of the country where the mayor is a retired police general, have been chosen as the first two laboratories of an innovative loaning program aimed at increasing the productivity of farmers and fishermen and lifting them out of poverty.
The program will be implemented by the Agriculture Credit Police Council (ACPC), an agency which handles the loaning program of the DAF all over the country.
ACPC Executive Director Jocelyn Badiola and her staff have already visited Malimono, Surigao del Norte and Bongabon, Nueva Ecija right after I personally selected the two towns are the pilot areas in the implementation of the program.
For the town of Malimono, a poor town with rich fishing grounds, an initial loan amount of P15-million will be downloaded to a local credit cooperative which has been lending to the poor at a very high rate of 3.5% per month or effectively 42% per year.
For the town of Bongabon, a town which produces Onion, rice, corn and vegetables, the initial loanable amount is P20-M.
Before the implementation of the loaning program, farmers and fishermen will be properly identified and their areas properly marked through geo-tagging.
After the verification, all information will be in-putted in a computer data base and issued identification cards complete with their biometrics and passbooks.
The amount of loan to be granted will depend on the activity and commodity that the farmers will be involved in with a maximum loan amount of P50,000.
At an interest rate of 6% per year or .5% per month, the maturity of the loan will depend on the commodity and activity he will be involved in.
For rice and corn, I have recommended a two year loan maturity, five years for high value crops like cacao and coffee and a maximum of 10 years for long gestating crops like coconut, mango and others.
Every farmer and fishermen who will avail of the loan will be automatically covered by crop insurance under the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC) and the premium will be deducted from his loan proceeds.
Today, the ACPC, PCIC, the Information and Communications Technology Service (ICTS) and other involved offices will meet in the Office of the Secretary to finalise everything so that the loaning program could be implemented just in time for the next planting season.
(Photos show the town of Malimono and its residents during the forum held when I visited the town on March 25 and the onion farmers of Bongabon which I visited on April 5. Photos by Mayette Tudlas)
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