By Allan Nawal/PNA
DAVAO CITY — Rice farmers will now be able to draw cash advances from the government for their pre-harvest requirements – from planting to other crop-related activities – starting this cropping season, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said.
Piñol said the credit facility, which has been established by the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) and the National Food Authority (NFA), was aimed at freeing farmers from the shackles of loan sharks and traders, who charge them usurious rates.
Both the ACPC and the NFA are under the Department of Agriculture.
Piñol said the credit facility, dubbed the Production Loan Easy Access (PLEA), will only be available for farmers who would agree to sell their harvest to the NFA though.
“The PLEA program is the government’s intervention to provide farmers an option to their “cash advance” requirements which they usually get from loan sharks and local traders who charge between 5% to 10% interest rates per month,” Piñol added.
He said the loan is collateral-free and will be slapped with a 3-percent interest over a six-month period. Each farmer will get as much as PHP50,000.
“(The loan is) payable after the harvest season,” he said.
The credit facility will be officially launched in Sultan Kudarat province on Tuesday, January 29.
The next cropping season would soon start but this early, many farmers were already starting to prepare their fields for planting.
Piñol said farmers wanting to avail of the loan would have to go to the NFA office or buying station nearest them to register.
“As soon as he is registered, the DA, through the Information and Communication Technology Service (ICTS), will conduct a validation of his farm location, the size of land and his projected production through aerial mapping, geo-tagging and geo-referencing,” Piñol said.
He said once the validation was done, the availing farmer would then be asked to enter into a marketing agreement with the NFA.
The agreement specifies that the farmer would only sell his harvest to the NFA and that the grains agency would be allowed to deduct from the proceeds of his produce the amount of loan that he had obtained.
Piñol said all crops funded under the PLEA loan would be automatically insured under the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC).