The Land Bank of the Philippines has released P2.2 billion worth of loans to 13,701 rice farmers and cooperatives under the Expanded Rice Credit Assistance program of the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (ERCA-RCEF).
Some P1.1 billion of the loan releases under ERCA-RCEF directly financed the palay production of individual rice farmers under the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA).
Another P507.5 million financed cooperatives relending to rice farmer-members; P394.1 million for rice traders and millers; and P222 million for the purchase of farm machinery and equipment.
Of the 13,701 beneficiaries, 4,783 were from from Cagayan Valley, particularly the rice-producing provinces of Cagayan, Nueva Vizcaya and Quirino.
Land Bank also assisted 1,858 beneficiaries in Central Luzon; 1,463 in Western Visayas; 1,334 in Caraga; 1,323 in Mimaropa; and the rest in the regions of Ilocos, Calabarzon, Bicol, Central Visayas, Eastern Visayas, Zamboanga Peninsula, Northern Mindanao, Davao, Soccsksargen and the Cordillera Administrative Region.
The ERCA-RCEF, implemented in partnership with the DA, aims to boost the productivity and income of small rice farmers and their cooperatives to cushion the initial impact of the Rice Tariffication Law.
Land Bank said its has fully disbursed the allocated fund for ERCA-RCEF from 2019 to 2022 but will continue to make available P500 million in loans annually until next year to cooperatives and rice farmers registered under the RSBSA in the country’s 38 rice-producing provinces.
The ERCA-RCEF program also allows individual rice farmers to borrow up to 90 percent of total project cost at a low fixed annual interest rate of 2 percent.
Loan proceeds may be used to purchase inputs for rice and rice seed production, farm machinery and equipment for production and post-production, working capital for rice and seed trading, as well as relending and rediscounting of existing loans of small rice farmers listed under the DA’s RSBSA.
