ADB gives $1-M grant for irrigation
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 05:48:00 11/08/2008
Filed Under: Foreign Aid, International Economic Institutions, Agriculture, Arable Farming
The Asian Development Bank said it would give $1 million in technical assistance to the Philippine government for upgrading of irrigation facilities, in support of efforts to “improve food security and cut rural poverty amid a surge in global food prices.”
The grant, which will come from the Japan Special Fund, will finance the “Irrigation System Operation Efficiency Improvement Project,” aimed at upgrading and extending irrigation services in existing irrigated farm areas, the ADB said in a statement.
The government’s counterpart to the grant will come in the form of staff, office space and other support services worth $250,000, it said.
It added that unlike in previous projects, farmers and other beneficiaries of the grant would participate in the design, development and management of the project.
The Philippines’ National Irrigation Administration will oversee the project implementation, it said.
Ian Makin, senior water resources management specialist at the ADB Southeast Asia department, said the project would cover 40,000 hectares of irrigated land by 2016 and help increase farm household incomes and reduce rural poverty.
The government has been ramping up spending on infrastructure and irrigation projects, in a bid to achieve self-sufficiency primarily in rice.
Idle irrigation systems nationwide have rendered unproductive some 368,000 hectares of rice land, which could have produced at least 29.4 million sacks of rice per cropping season. Amy Remo; with editing by INQUIRER.net
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