By Rey Anthony Chiu, PIA-Bohol | 01:07 PM May 31, 2020
Around 39,278 Boholano farmers who have been tilling between half a hectare to two hectares of ricelands, receive P5,000.00 non conditional cash assistance, in time when the country’s poor and low income families also get their Social Amelioration Program cash aids.
Department of Agriculture Regional Executive Director Atty Salvador Diputado bared that while the country’s poor and low income families get SAP, small rice farmers also get to see the realization of the government’s promises in the implementation of the Rice Tariffication Act.
The Rice Tariffication Act has imposed 35 percent tariff on the entry of imported rice to be collected by the government, the collection would be the fund source of programs that would boost small local farmers’ capacities to compete in the flooding of cheaper imported rice.
Owing to outdated technologies, manual labor and other cultural factors, compared to rice production in neighboring countries, the Philippines has continued to be producing rice at almost double the price others are producing, explains DA-Agricultural Promotions Center Bohol center chief Roman Dabalos, at the Kapihan sa PIA.
Among the government’s promises for the Rice Tariffication Act is to boost local production with a series of stimulus packages and the P10 billion Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF).
To help small farmers, the Rice Farmers Financial Assistance is the DA and Land Bank of the Philippines program in a form of P5,000 unconditional cash assistance to farmers registered in the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA), according to Atty Diputado.
In Bohol, Diputado, who is a Negrense married to a Boholana, said since the biggest rice producers in Central Visayas come from Bohol and Negros Oriental, only these two provinces are listed as among the country’s 33 rice producing provinces eligible for the RFFA.
He said initially, RFFA in Bohol targets 53,662 small farmer beneficiaries, but with the local APC doing administrative functions, Bohol was able to pull-out fund sources from other areas where their accomplishments are low.
With 54,005 beneficiaries now, the government through Land Bank of the Philippines have paid some 39,278 farmer beneficiaries, Diputado reported.
This constitutes 75.2 percent of the total Bohol beneficiaries, even as LBP continues to hand in the cash grants, he added.
But even if this is an unconditional cash transfer assistance, DA-7 reminded farmers that this amount is really intended to make them more competitive and by such, should help in boosting their production.
“Please allocate an amount from the assistance for seeds and fertilizers,” Diputado calls considering that that government’s package of assistance to farmers include mechanization of farm processes, seeds, skills trainings and other bonanzas.
The DA has implemented a counter-parting scheme, which applies when a farmer buys hybrid or inbred seeds, which assure better harvests.
IF a farmer buys tow bags of hybrid rice seed, the government puts up three more bags of hybrid seeds counterpart. If he buys 2 bags of inbred rice, the government puts up two more bags of inbred rice for him, according to the lawyer aggie regional head.
These seeds, for the farmers to get the maximum yield, needs the right fertilizer inputs, and the cash aid can help, he intoned.
