LAGAWE, IFUGAO– The Ifugao Global Entrepreneurs Multipurpose Cooperative (IGEMCO) has partnered with the Department of Agriculture (DA) to further improve the conditions of farmers in Ifugao.
Through the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC), the IGEMCO is set to extend Php 25,000 loan assistance for individual farmers in the province.
The new program covers the 11 towns of Ifugao.
“Our farmers obviously need assistance from the government in order to boost their productivity. We also joined the clamor to extend credit to them. We persevered and triumphed in the end,” general manager and chief executive officer Godfrey Dominong said.
“This is a good development for the province’s farmers,” he added.
Dominong said that there are about 200 beneficiaries under the IGEMCO operational coverage of the program.
“It is very pleasing to see that the government is acting on the call to provide this much-needed assistance to our farmers,” Dominong told the ZigZag Weekly.
“I don’t think we can ask more,” he added.
Ifugao’s leading economic sector is agriculture. Over the years, farmers’ production has been very low. As a result, most of them are poor.
Credit has remained an important instrument in boosting the production in farm lots.
Critics of credit sourced from government banking or financial institutions said this tool is unaffordable, charging that the use of ostensibly giveaway schemes that waste taxpayer money is non-sense. Defenders say otherwise. They argued that the aid meets diverse objectives of the agriculture sector which is made up mostly of farmers.
Dominong said they might launch the program within the month of June that would complement the intention of President Duterte to modernize the country’s agriculture.
“We’re preparing everything for it. We hope to roll out the program at the soonest,” he pointed out.
It is quite a long process even involving the review and approval of application papers by a municipal agriculture officer.
Foresight is vital to ensure the long-term viability of the credit assistance program, thus, focusing on ways to determine the borrowers’ credit worthiness counts.
Observers here said the partnership with the DA reaffirms the IGEMCO’s pro-farmer advocacy. Earlier, Dominong shared with DA representatives that aside from providing credit line assistance to farmers in this part of the country, the cooperative successfully assisted them in training programs.
“We don’t have a specific advice or recommendation to a farmer-beneficiary on how to spend the money,” Dominong said, adding that the cooperative will focus its attention on the program in the coming weeks.
Today, there are renewed talks about farmers’ other longstanding problems on the lack of farm-to-market roads, post-harvest facilities, communal irrigation systems and farm implements, while stimulating the demand for increased budgetary allocation by Congress for the agriculture sector.
It confirms how extraordinary the attention farmers are supposedly be getting from the officialdom. Even the Chief Executive is not exempted.
This is the opportune time that the DA and the cooperative movement to come together for a common cause, to benefit soil tillers.
To jump-start these efforts, the IGEMCO also touched base with other stakeholders, notably Governor Jerry Dalipog.
Dominong said the cooperative decided to start this initiative through partnership with the DA because it is the main implementation arm of the government in agriculture-related undertakings.
Realistically, the extension of credit as well as market linkages for cash-strapped farmers is seen as most helpful to substantially reduce poverty incidence in the countryside.
While bumper rice harvests are taking place in the neighboring province of Nueva Vizcaya, the opposite occurs in Ifugao. Technological breakthroughs and improvements among Ifugao farmers have not accelerated. Backward practices are still prevalent.
For short, Nueva Vizcaya is getting all the development.
Poverty incidence in Ifugao’s 11 towns is high. The poverty rate has remained steady for the last 40 years. Appropriateness on guiding the farmer-beneficiary on how to use credit prudently is vitally important as farm yield will depend on purchased implements, not to mention that a particular crop has been planted soon after such purchase. There is no room for any mistake. For one, buying food for the table instead of seedlings has generally impaired the purpose of the initiative.
A generally positive attitude on the plight of farmers also helped make growth in the farm sector possible in a few areas in the Philippines. Low-productivity agriculture still prevails in most provinces. The situation is becoming untenable to poor families who produce food but who find delivering it such at expensive endeavor because of the absence of farm-to-market roads. Past and present government officials’ inaction on this problem would appear very difficult to countenance. To be sure, farmers’ organizations have not allowed these issues to be brushed aside like dirt swept under a rug. The effects are simply damming.
The proper utilization of this initiative becomes more significant in the light of the effects of the economic slowdown in the near term as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. Each one should be enlightened, keeping in mind, the commitment of the DA, through this assistance is to achieve the goal of enhancing the lives of many farmers.
Tilling the soil in the Philippines meant taking certain things in a serious tone just like a life and death perspective, like incurring heavy debts and falling for more, more debts each planting season. It was simply a way of life.
Sen. Cynthia Villar once said, “Farmers should be taught to raise their income through modern methods of farming.” Villar is the chair of the committee on agriculture and food. This assertion does not prove that farmers are not knowledgeable of how to keep their finances. It proves that they’re engaged in lousy farming.
There is a golden opportunity for those in the cooperative movement to immediately embark on a journey to holistically and positively impact the agriculture sector.
Consequently, the provincial government should also provide assistance to farmers. It should strengthen cooperation among farmers’ organizations for them to gain easier access to credit assistance being provided by the provincial government and other lending institutions. There is also a need to expand credit surety fund for farmers.
Landbank is the biggest lender to the agriculture sector. Loans were extended to small farmers, agrarian reform beneficiaries, fishers and their associations and other players in the agribusiness value chain.
The surge of demands from the private sector is not entirely unexpected, since that after power in the provincial government shifts from one party to the next, there’ s typically a surge of recommendations.
Some Ifugao cooperative leaders are advocating this to uplift the farming sector. More statements of support could be coming. Good move by these well-meaning leaders to help impoverished farmers- they truly deserve it.
Twenty six years ago, the IGEMCO was established to give Ifugao folks a global perspective. Unleashing its ability once more to shape the same agenda with farmers is a far better safeguard than giving them a few goodies.** By Anthony A. Araos
