Dept of Agriculuture Food Security and Self Sufficiency Program

DA’s two-tier intervention program involved local govts.

IN order to fully implement its food security and self-sufficiency program next year, the Department of Agriculture (DA) has created a two-tier intervention program to increase the involvement of local governments, nongovernment organizations and local government organizations in its food security and self-sufficiency programs in 2009.

In a statement, the DA said it will give priority to areas where local governments are willing to provide counterpart funding for farm-friendly programs and to the 2,600 clusters spread out in 48 provinces across the country where per-hectare yields are below the national average of 3.8 metric tons (MT), or 76 cavans per hectare.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said these priority areas for government funding or intervention support will be divided under the two-tiered system, based on each and every FIELDS (fertilizers, irrigation and other rural infrastructure, education and extension services for farmers, loans, dryers and other postharvest facilities and seeds) component.

Yap said the counterpart funds provided by local governments will help offset the impact of the financial crisis by generating economic activities and creating more jobs in the countryside.

“Although the DA’s intervention programs aim to target all sector, especially those in the 2,600 clusters nationwide, we have reached consensus following a series of meetings to prioritize areas where local governments are ready and capable of providing counterpart funding, in a bid to draw more funds from the private sector, local governments and other groups other than the national government,” Yap said.

“Greater investments in the sector will induce greater economic activity, which will, in turn, rev up the rural economy and create more jobs in the countryside at a time when the global financial flu is expected by international experts to get worse in the year ahead before it gets any better,” he added.

Yap said that under the system, support for organic-fertilizer production will be given to the first 600 clusters where local governments are willing to provide counterpart funding for this type of intervention and then to 2,000 more clusters in provinces where per-hectare production is below the national yield average.

As for the irrigation component of FIELDS, Yap said the priority locations will be communities where local governments will provide counterpart funding, such as in the nationwide program Balikatan Sagip Patubig Program, a tripartite program of DA-National Irrigation Administration, local governments and irrigators associations.

Areas with high cropping intensity in national irrigation systems are, as of July 31, the Magat River Integrated Irrigation System, Isabela, with 182 percent; Upper Pampanga River Integrated Irrigation System, Nueva Ecija, 188 percent; Zamboanga peninsula, 189 percent; and Davao region, 197 percent.

Based on the consensus, Yap said priority areas for the construction of farm-to-market roads, on the other hand, will be those that will open new areas of production and low-yield farming communities.

Yap said local governments that can provide counterpart funding of at least 10 percent for the construction of FMRs will be prioritized, for funding support next year. Such proposed FMRs should physically connect farm and fishery production areas to existing municipal or provincial road networks.

However, Yap said, the mechanisms for the other FIELDS components are still being drawn up.

Yap directed DA officials in charge of the various Ginintuang Masaganang Ani banner programs to also coordinate with local government organizations such as the Union of Local Government Authorities of the Philippines, League of Provinces of the Philippines and the League of Municipalities of the Philippines in identifying the priority areas where the department will channel its FIELDS intervention programs in 2009.

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By Business Mirror