Palace abandons rice program, but not Piñol
September 5, 2016 at 09:27
Palace abandons rice program, but not Piñol
The Department of Agriculture (DA) will now have to look for other funding sources for its rice self-sufficiency dream, after the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) deleted the P18-billion supposed allocation for the program.
Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol told the BusinessMirror on Thursday that he is eyeing to implement a “public-private partnership” scheme for farming as an answer to the DBM’s scrapping of the DA’s proposed
budget and project.
“Yes, [the P18-billion budget] was not approved by the DBM, but we will not stop [to push for rice sufficiency]. Even without the approval of the Rice Productivity Enhancement [RIPE], it doesn’t mean we are going to stop [to achieve rice sufficiency],” Piñol said in a phone interview on Thursday.
The RIPE is a recovery program that would distribute seeds and fertilizers to rice farmers affected by El Niño, Piñol said. The budget allocation for the program wasn’t approved by the finance committee during the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations hearing for the DA’s 2017 National Expenditure Program on August 25.
“In fact, I heard that some people said I looked stupid by proposing such a huge investment for rice sufficiency,” Piñol said on his Facebook page on Friday.
Piñol added that he is planning to establish “local government corporate farms,” (LGCF) that would make the country 100-percent rice self-sufficient and, at the same time, fulfilling the order of President Duterte to distribute 20 kilograms of rice to family-beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).
Under the LGCF, the local government units (LGUs) will adopt a publicly or privately owned farm, which they will fund throughout the planting season, Piñol said. The LGUs will be the ones shouldering the costs of the farmers’ seeds and fertilizers in the duration of the plantation, he added.
The LGUs will also be in charge of buying back their farmers’ rice harvest and distributing the 20 kg of rice to 4Ps beneficiaries under their jurisdiction, Piñol said.
“In this scheme, we [the DA] don’t need a budget anymore. The only intervention that the DA will do is provide equipment and technical programs on farming to LGUs’ people, basically, everything is financed by the LGUs,” he said.
The DA chief also said the LGUs can avail themselves of loans from the Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank) as additional funding, on top of their respective internal revenue allotment.
“I still have to propose the LGCF concept to the LandBank board and get their approval so that they can allot loans for all the LGUs all over the country,” Piñol said, who is also a member of the LandBank Boads, adding that it depends on the LGUs how much they want to loan, depending on the size of the farming land that they will fund.
Piñol disclosed that he has made an agreement “in principle” with the Quezon City government to become the pilot LGU for the LGCF.
“We already have an agreement with the Quezon City government to implement the scheme. Their corporate farm is in Mindoro,” Piñol said, adding that they will make the formal proposal to the Quezon City government in the first week of September.
Piñol also said the city governments of Manila and Kidapawan in North Cotabato also showed interest in the LGCF program.
When asked if he would still push for a budget allocation for the RIPE Program by next year, Piñol said it depends on the outcome of the LGCFs.
“I would have to let it [RIPE Program] go if the LGCF proves to be productive. I think this is really better than the RIPE Program,” Piñol said.
Piñol earlier said he envisions the Philippines to be totally rice sufficient by 2018 and even a rice exporter by that year, by increasing farm productivity, particularly the average yield per hectare, of rice farmers in the country. The DA’s proposed budget for 2017 is P50.55 billion, P3 billion lower than this year’s P53.97-billion budget. The agency’s 2017 budget is nearly 30 percent less than the P71-billion budget that Piñol submitted to Malacañang earlier.
