The Land Bank of the Philippines said financial support to rice farmers from loans released through the Expanded Rice Credit Assistance under the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (ERCA-RCEF) has reached P2.5 billion as of end-April 2024.
The state-run bank has been successful in fully disbursing the P500 million allocated annual fund under ERCA-RCEF from 2019 to 2023 as it also continues to make loans available to rice farmers and their cooperatives at affordable interest rates with minimum documentary requirements.
“Land Bank’s support to the agriculture sector is crucial to ensuring food security in the country. We are committed to providing continued financial assistance to our rice farmers to help them sustain their operations and improve productivity, especially in the face of challenges including the El Niño phenomenon,” said Lynette Ortiz, Land Bank president and chief executive officer, in a statement.
The bank said the P2.5 billion worth of loans released under ERCA-RCEF benefitted over 15,400 individual rice farmers and 270 cooperatives with more than 21,300 member-beneficiaries which were channeled to support palay production, milling and trading, re-lending, and acquisition of farm machineries.
Under the program, 98 percent of Land Bank’s direct borrowers are also individual rice farmers. Majority of the loan borrowers also came from the rice producing provinces of Cagayan Valley, particularly Cagayan, Nueva Vizcaya and Quirino wherein 4,945 borrowers were assisted for a total of P612.4 million in loans released.
It was followed by Central Luzon with 2,243 borrowers for total loan releases amounting to P840.3 million.
The state-run bank also extended assistance to rice farmers in Visayas and Mindanao, including the provinces of Capiz, Leyte, Agusan del Sur, Bukidnon, North Cotabato and Zamboanga del Sur.
