The Land Bank of the Philippines (Landbank) has released P2.2 billion in loans to 13,701 rice farmers and cooperatives as of end-July 2023 through the Expanded Rice Credit Assistance under the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (ERCA-RCEF).
A total of P1.1 billion of the bank’s loan releases under ERCA-RCEF directly financed palay production of individual rice farmers listed under the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA), Landbank said.
Meanwhile, P507.5 million was earmarked for relending of cooperatives to its rice farmer-members; P394.1 million for rice trading and milling; and P222 million for the purchase of farm machineries and equipment.
Of the 13,701 beneficiaries, 4,783 hailed from Cagayan Valley, particularly the rice-producing provinces of Cagayan, Nueva Vizcaya and Quirino.
Landbank also assisted 1,858 beneficiaries from Central Luzon, 1,463 from Western Visayas, 1,334 from Caraga, 1,323 from Mimaropa and the rest from the regions of Ilocos, Calabarzon, Bicol, Central Visayas, Eastern Visayas, Zamboanga Peninsula, Northern Mindanao, Davao, Soccsksargen and the Cordillera Administrative Region.
Implemented in partnership with the DA, the ERCA-RCEF is a credit facility that aims to boost the productivity and income of small rice farmers and their cooperatives and cushion the initial impact of the Rice Tariffication Law.
Landbank said it has fully disbursed the allocated fund for ERCA-RCEF from 2019 to 2022, and 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 their total project cost at a low fixed interest rate of 2 percent per year, Landbank added.
The loan may be used to purchase farm inputs for rice and rice seed production, farm machineries 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.
