THE establishment of the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund will help boost farm productivity and will partly result in easing the farm credit crunch that has ballooned to P367 billion, a pro-administration lawmaker said on Tuesday.
Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte said although the RCEF, that would be established under the Rice Tariffication Bill, would allocate only 10 percent of its P10 billion funding or P1 billion for credit to farmers and cooperatives, it would help the agriculture sector gain access to lending facilities so far denied it by the banking sector despite a law requiring banks to allot a specific portion of their credit facilities to the agriculture sector.
“That is only P1 billion offered at preferential lending rates to farmers and cooperatives. But alongside the other features of the RCEF, the agriculture sector would finally get the assistance it needs to directly provide palay farmers the facilities they need to boost their incomes and make them competitive in the global market,” Villafuerte said.
Villafuerte made the statement as President Rodrigo Duterte was expected to sign soon the Rice Tariffication Bill scheduled to be ratified at the House this week.
The bicameral conference committee report on the bill, which has been approved by the House of Representatives, replaces the quantitative restrictions on rice imports with tariffs and remove unnecessary government intervention in the rice market, said Villafuerte, a co-author of the measure.
Villafuerte said he believeb the bill would boost farm productivity and help rein in inflation since the spike in food prices contributed largely to the runaway inflation in the past few months.
Under the measure, the RCEF will have a minimum annual allocation of P10 billion for six years, and tariff revenues from rice imports in excess of P10 billion shall be appropriated by the Congress for this sector, based on a list of programs in the Rice Tariffication Law.
Under the bill, the proposed fund will be allocated as follows: 50 percent for grants to farmers’ associations, registered rice cooperatives, and local government units in the form of rice equipment, to be implemented by the Philippine Center for Post-Harvest Development and Mechanization; and 30 percent for the development, propagation and promotion of inbred rice seeds to rice farmers and organizations, to be implemented by the Philippine Rice Research Institute.
The 10 percent will be in the form of credit at preferential rates to rice farmers and cooperatives to be managed by the Land Bank of the Philippines and the Development Bank of the Philippines.
The remaining 10 percent will be for extension services to teach rice farmers modern methods of farming, seed production, and farm mechanization, to be administered by PhilMech, PhilRice, the Agricultural Training Institute and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.