P240.5 million released under DA financing program

MANILA, Philippines - Some 4,800 small farmers have so far benefited from an agricultural lending program jointly implemented by the cooperative bank sector and the government through the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC).

Agriculture Undersecretary Berna Romulo-Puyat said loans totalling P240.5 million have been released under the Cooperative Bank Agri Lending Program (CBAP),

The amount came from the ACPC and its participating cooperative bank conduits.

Puyat commended the cooperative banking sector for actively participating in the CBAP, which has released loan funds to 24 cooperative bank partners.

She said the coop banks have a combined membership of primary cooperatives estimated at 3,200 and potential individual beneficiaries of at least 160,000.

“I commend and congratulate the coop banking sector for faithfully adhering to its mission of serving the rural sector, first and foremost,” she said. “While other banks continued to sidestep the minimum rural lending requirements of the Agri-Agra Law, the coop banks bravely continued to fully devote their resources to the credit needs of small farmers and fisherfolk.”

Puyat said the ACPC provided the initial kick-off fund of P300 million for the CBAP, which was leveraged at least five times by participating cooperative banks.

Twenty-four cooperative banks have pledged to deliver loans amounting to P1.5 billion.

“From its formal launch in Pampanga last April 2008 up to end of December 2008, CBAP has released P240.5 million to accredited coop bank wholesalers, which in turn, have disbursed to 4,868 borrowers in the rural areas,” Puyat said.  

Some of the strategies being eyed to strengthen the program, Puyat said, are the inclusion of loans to long-gestating commodities/projects; provision of an additional P100 million credit fund; and the setting-up of an institutional capacity-building component for CBAP-partner coop banks.

CBAP is one of the initiatives under the loan component of FIELDS, which stands for Fertilizer, Irrigation, Education and extension, Loans, Driers and other post-harvest facilities, and Seeds.

“Although the cooperative movement’s development in the Philippines has not been as fast and smooth as we would have wanted it to be, we still look up to cooperativism as the most viable and equitable way of ensuring our small farmers and fisher folk sustained access to cheap and affordable credit,” Puyat said.