P7.5B in loans, grants released to ease rice tariff law impact —LBP

State-run lender Land Bank of the Philippines on Wednesday said it has disbursed a total of P7.5 billion in loans and grants, benefitting almost one million rice farmers more than two years since the Rice Tariffication Law (RTL) or Republic Act No. 11203 was enacted.

In a statement, Landbank said the total loans and cash grants were disbursed as of April 30, 2021 and benefitted 962,126 rice farmers.

The state-run bank administers support programs for the Department of Agriculture as part of the RTL implementation to help local rice farmers increase their productivity and income.

Of the total P7.5 billion in disbursements as of April 30, 2021, P1.03 billion in cumulative loans were extended to 6,218 eligible borrowers under the Expanded Rice Credit Assistance under the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (ERCA-RCEF).

Available until 2024, Landbank will lend up to P500 million in credit assistance annually under ERCA-RCEF to rice farmers in 38 rice-producing provinces at affordable interest rates, with minimum documentary requirements.

Also, Landbank has released a total of P2.52 billion in loans to 165,963 small rice farmers through the Survival and Recovery Assistance (SURE Aid) Lending Program, providing an immediate credit assistance of P15,000 per borrower with zero interest and no collateral to rice farmers who are tilling one hectare of land and below.

Meanwhile, under the DA’s Rice Farmer Financial Assistance (RFFA) Program, a total of 253,826 farmers were provided cash assistance amounting to P1.27 billion.

RFFA is a P3-billion unconditional cash transfer program which aims to give P5,000 financial assistance each to rice farmers who are tilling 0.5 to two hectares of land.

Moreover, Landbank said it released a total of P2.68 billion in cash grants to 536,119 farmer-beneficiaries under the DA’s Financial Subsidy to Rice Farmers (FSRF) Program.

Through the FSRF, small rice farmers tiling one hectare or less who are not covered under the RFFA Program are provided a P5,000 cash subsidy to augment their production needs.

President Rodrigo R. Duterte signed RA 11203 entitled, “An Act Liberalizing the Importation, Exportation, and Trading of Rice, Lifting for the Purpose the Quantitative Import Restriction on Rice, and for Other Purposes” on February 14, 2019.

The law provided a P10-billion annual support to rice farmers to help increase their productivity and income.

Finance Secretary and Landbank chairman Carlos Dominguez III said the passage and implementation of the RTL was among the game-changing accomplishments of the Duterte administration, which forms part of the national government’s “whole-of-the-nation” initiatives toward making the Philippine rice industry competitive over counterparts in the Southeast Asian region. —LBG, GMA News