Israel P42-B Soft Loan Offer For Solar Irrigation Snubbed (2nd of 3 Installments)

In a Presidential event in Buluan, Maguindanao on April 25, 2018, I personally asked President Rodrigo Duterte if he would allow me to negotiate with the Israel Government for a soft loan to establish a Solar-Powered Irrigation System Project which would cover 500,000 hectares.
I explored a foreign loan option for the Solar-Powered Irrigation Project because the Dept.of Agriculture’s request for budget did not get the endorsement of the DBCC or Development Budget Coordinating Committee.
As expected, President Duterte gave me the green light and I started working with then Israel Ambassador to the Philippines Rafael Harpaz and on July 18, 2019, we both signed on behalf of our governments an Implementing Agreement on Agricultural Cooperation.
The banner program under the agreement was the transfer of technology, funding and establishment of Solar-Powered irrigation Systems all over the country funded by a long-term loan of P42-B being offered by the Israeli government.
The project will involve the establishment of 6,200 units of computerised Solar-Powered Irrigation Systems (SPIS) intended to irrigate 500,000 hectares of rice farms and other high-value agricultural products over the next three years.
The project will also include the introduction of the “Fertigation” technology where the irrigation systems will allow the application of fertilisers and other farm inputs which would be mixed with irrigation water.
The Israeli government installed two prototypes of the SPIS – one for a small farm set up of up to 5 hectares and the other for a big farm set up of up to 100 hectares which were donated by an Israeli company which is one of those interested in undertaking the SPIS projects in the Philippines.
When a Malacañang-created muiti-agency team to process the documents for the project submitted its recommendations to the NEDA-ICC, the documents were swallowed by a bureaucratic Black Hole.
From the time I left the DA to move to the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) on Aug. 5 up to the end of the Duterte Presidency, nothing was heard of the Solar-Powered Irrigation Loan offered by Israel.
That was five years ago and today I feel sad thinking of the lost agricultural production with 500,000 hectares of farmlands provided with irrigation.
Along with the Russian Fertilizer Loan Offer to rice farmers through the Planters Products Inc., the failure of the Solar-Powered Irrigation to sail through the NEDA-ICC was one of my greatest frustrations as a Food Security Advocate.
Water Under The Bridge, yes, but we have to look bak at this lost opportunities to remind our Policy Makers and Economic Managers that their failure to appreciate the interventions that Agriculture needs most will have adverse impacts on our Food Security targets.
Today, we wear the ignominious crown as the World’s Number 1 Rice Importer.
#GovernanceIsCommonSense!