DA seeks doubling of budget in ’19

The Department of Agriculture is hoping to increase its loan funds by tenfold, improve its rice program and boost the country’s maritime presence in the Philippine Rise before the end of President Duterte’s term.

To do this, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol will work on securing a P130-billion budget for 2019—more than double the agency’s budget this year of P60 billion.

In an interview on Wednesday, the agriculture chief said the department had secured the endorsement of the National Agricultural and Fishery Council for the proposed budget to fund its three priority programs.

Firstly, the DA is set to implement a “major policy shift” starting this year by moving away from providing subsidies to farmers and fisherfolk and move to credit financing as repayment rates of local producers continue to improve.

“I’m asking P10 billion for easy access credit because we are slowly shifting from loans to financing as approved by the President,” he said.

For this year, the agency’s Agricultural Credit Policy Council was given an estimate of P1 billion. This is expected to increase by tenfold if the budget proposal will be approved.

Secondly, the DA will be allocating P13.76 billion for its rice program.
According to Piñol, a recent discussion with the International Rice Research Institute showed that out of the 39 million metric tons (MT) of rice in the world market, 5 percent or 15 million MT had already been allocated for China.

Pinol said the department was aiming for a 97-percent rice self-sufficiency rate to avoid supply glut.

Lastly, the DA will set aside P19.6 billion for fishery law enforcement. Piñol revealed that the National Security Council (NSC) has synchronized efforts among agencies to protect Philippine Rise, with DA leading the conservation of the country’s aquatic resources.

Under its budget proposal, DA is hoping to build four multimission vessels (MMVs) in addition to the two MMVs built last year. It will also be constructing a refrigerated food boat to ferry food commodities across the country, and helicopter patrols to monitor the country’s 24 fishing grounds.