DA extends fresh loans to aid farmers

The Department of Agriculture (DA) has released P92 million in new loans to smallholder farmers to help them cope with the continued decline in palay (unhusked rice) prices as a result of the industry’s liberalization.

The newly released credit assistance forms part of the P2.5-billion Expanded Survival and Recovery Assistance Program for Rice Farmers (SURE Aid), which DA and the Land Bank of the Philippines launched two months ago.

As of last week, total cash loans reached P206.92 million fund releases benefiting 13,643 farmers.

The latest round of loan releases reached 6,132 rice farmers who are based in Central Luzon, Southern Tagalog, Bicol, Western Visayas, Northern Mindanao and Davao regions.

Initially, around 1,000 farmer-beneficiaries from Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija availed themselves of the credit program.

Another batch of loan applications from 32,520 farmers totalling P1.14 billion is being processed and are expected within the next few weeks.

The DA-Agricultural Credit Policy Council is encoding 43,166 new applications that be transmitted to Landbank.

Under the SURE Aid program, a one-time nocollateral, zero-interest loan amounting to P15,000 will be provided for each farmer tilling less than one hectare to enable the beneficiary to continue or improve rice production. The loan is payable in eight years.

To make the loan application process easier for farmers, Landbank cut the application process to three hours from the usual 10 days and reduced the number of required documents.

Instead of the usually tedious process of filling up forms for loan application, sworn statement, and data privacy consent, the farmer only needs to tick the appropriate boxes on the forms. The bank also trimmed the 14-page promissory note to just one page.

DA said this was done to encourage farmers to apply for loans from formal credit providers as a way to boost investments in the farming sector.

The DA-ACPC allotted a total of P2.5 billion for the SURE Aid Program to be managed by Landbank over a period of four months from August 2019.

Around 170,000 rice farmers in the country are seen to benefit from the loan project.