‘Convert P60M as cash incentive, not a loan’

TUGUEGARAO CITY, Cagayan: The Philippine Farmers Advisory Board ( PFAB) in Cagayan Valley ( Region 2) has expressed its sentiment over the P15,000-loan to farmers as an added burden to the farmers.

Edwin Paraluman, PFAB chairman, said it would be better for the government to release the amount as cash incentive and not as a burdensome loan on the part of the farmer-recipient.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) in Region 2 had said it would release a P60-million subsidy to 4,000 rice farmers in the region suffering from the effects of the Rice Tarrification Law (RTL).

The DA said the subsidy was under the agency’s Expanded Survival and Recovery ( E- Sure) aid program as an immediate response to address the needs of rice farmers affected by the sudden drop of palay (unmilled rice) price.

“This is an aid program, which will provide a P15,000 loan with no interest to each rice farmer payable in eight years,” Narciso Edillo, DA Region 2 executive director, said, adding the processing was expected to be completed by October.

“But the P15,000-loan will only become an added burden instead of easing rice farmers who are suffering from the drop of palay price,” Paraluman said.

He said the amount of subsidy was not even enough to defray the high cost of rice farming and that farmers have already sacrificed so much of their rightful income from palay due to the effects of the liberalization of importation under the RTL.

Paraluman said they understand that the government only wants that the price of rice should be affordable to consumers but it should not be at the expense of farmers.

“The government may have been successful in its effort to lower the price of rice in the market, but the farmers are the ones suffering,” he added.