Landbank loans to agriculture hit P 3B

State-run Land Bank of the Philippines continued to increase its loan portfolio for agriculture nearly a year since President Duterte threatened to abolish the financial institution for acting “like a commercial bank” instead of serving the interests of farmers and fisherfolk.

Landbank said in a statement on Tuesday that it had released P3.02 billion in loans as of June this year to help agricultural stakeholders increase their productivity and profitability.Under the Agricultural Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (Acef) lending program, the bank released P2.5 billion worth of loans to 19,367 eligible borrowers. Of the total, 19,189 were small farmers and fishers, 119 micro and small enterprises (MSEs), 59 cooperatives and associations.Direct lending under Acef has been made available at an interest rate of 2 percent a year and borrowers may use the credit for the purchase of farm inputs, equipment and farm improvement.

For MSEs, cooperatives and associations, they may use the loan to build facilities for agri-based production, postproduction as well as processing.Aside from the Acef funds, Landbank also released P527.3 million to 3,115 rice farmers and 22 cooperatives through the Expanded Rice Credit Assistance under the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (Erca-RCEF).The Erca-RCEF program was implemented to provide support to farmers adversely affected by the rice tariffication law. Landbank is one of the implementing agencies for the P1-billion RCEF allocation for credit and is mandated to make available P500 million in loans annually to rice farmers in 59 out of 80 rice-producing provinces covered by the program from 2019 to 2024. INQ