BPI to extend financial assistance to small farmers
The Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) and the Kapisanan ng Magsasaka, Mangingisda at Manggagawa ng Pilipinas, (KaMMMPi), a farmer’s organization, recently forged an agreement which aims to help increase the productivity of their identified farmer-beneficiaries.
The agreement mandates the BPI to extend financial assistance to small farmers for them to operate their own seed bank that will supply certified seeds of rice to other farmers via equal exchange or barter basis or direct sales. The seedbank will also provide farmers easy access to high quality seeds.
In a report to Agriculture Secretary Bernie G. Fondevilla, BPI Director Larry R. Lacson said that the partnership is geared towards promoting the livelihood and welfare of small farmers, particularly in the rain–fed areas, whose only source of income is from palay planting and farm labor.
According to Lacson, this will improve genetic materials and increase crop yields by at least 20 percent.
The project, which will be initially implemented in Region 1, has a total cost of Php18 million and will run for two years. BPI targets to procure a total of 3,600 bags of high quality seeds to be distributed by KaMMMPi to their identified farmer–beneficiaries.
The project will enable at least 75 percent of farmers in Ilocos Sur who are ordinary seed users to use certified seeds.
BPI will conduct a series of lectures and workshops to enhance the technical capability of seed growers in the adoption of technological advancements in certified seeds production. (DA-BPI Planning)
WB expresses satisfaction with
This came after the WB team reported recently here the result of its month-long assessment of the Department of Agriculture’s Mindanao Rural Development Program (DA-MRDP).
DA-MRDP is long term poverty alleviation program for
It covers 225 of the 420 towns across
WB said the program has performed well both in terms of achieving its development objectives and its implementation progress.
The evaluation was based on two development objectives: the increase of incomes of the benefited communities and the institutionalization of a decentralized agriculture and fisheries services delivery mechanism.
WB lead rural development specialist Carolina F. Geron said although the loan disbursement was slow, significant improvements have been achieved.
“The trajectory of loan disbursement targets is not yet in the path of the catch-up targets they (Program management) set earlier but they have implemented various projects that lead to meet the program’s objectives,” Geron said.
“The program has also reported considerable improvements in the physical and financial performance of the project compared to the previous assessment in August 2009,” she added.
Program director Lealyn A. Ramos said the good performance of the program can be alluded to the active participation and involvement of the local government units (LGUs).
To date, 164 towns has availed of and benefited from the infrastructure, livelihoods and environment projects of the program.
Now on its third year of implementation, MRDP has accomplished over 131 million worth of agricultural infrastructure of which close to 66 kilometers of farm-to-market roads have been established, 39 linear meters of bridge and four units of potable water systems erected serving over a thousand households.
With the counterpart of beneficiaries, about P87.01 million worth of various agri-based livelihoods were created benefiting mostly women and Indigenous Peoples and P42 million had been invested for environmental conservation and protection.
Lead implementers
For rural infrastructure (RI), northern Mindanao (region 10) leads the implementation which has completed projects amounting to P53.15 million, on-going subprojects P58.28 million. Caraga region (region 13) is second having implemented a total of P31.08 million worth of projects. Followed by regions 12, 11, 9 and ARMM, respectively.
RI implements projects farm to market roads, irrigation systems, single lane bridges, and postharvest facilities.
For the Community Fund for Agricultural Development (CFAD), the livelihood component, ARMM leads in the implementation which utilized 92% of its released funds to date, followed by regions 13 and 10 both disbursed 75% of its released funds. Region 12 comes in fourth and regions 11 and 9 were ranked fifth and sixth respectively.
CFAD employs community driven development (cdd) approach where the peoples organization themselves identify and implement their project with the help of the LGUs.
More Funds available
Ramos said while a frontload of investments have been spent, there is still a bulk of funds ready for LGUs.
“We urge LGUs to avail more of the projects under MRDP especially on agricultural infrastructure projects which will pump-prime more income and investments in their locality,” Ramos said.
“We have reaped success from our labor and we expect to deliver more as more projects will be rolled out to the communities,” Ramos said.
WB Team
The review mission team was also participated in by WB operations officer for rural development Felizardo Virtucio, Jr.; rural development economist and M&E specialist Fabricio Bresciani; institutional development specialist Luningning Bondoc; rural infrastructure engineer Salvador Jiao; social development specialist Ines bagadion; natural resources management specialist Gilbert Braganza; and decentralization specialist Cesar Umali. (Sherwin B. Manual)
