NTA extends P20-million assistance to tobacco farmers

CANDON CITY, Ilocos Sur, Philippines – Tobacco farmers who traditionally engage in rice farming after harvesting their tobacco crop got a shot in the arm after the National Tobacco Administration (NTA)  gave out over P20 million in production assistance to help them plant the staple crop this wet season and boost the rice self-sufficiency program of the government.

NTA Administrator Edgardo Zaragoza handed out checks to 1,484 farmer-cooperators who gathered here recently as he announced that the agency is allocating P200-million for tobacco production assistance later this year.

The group of farmer-recipients came from La Union, Pangasinan, Ilocos Sur, Ilocos Norte, Abra and Mindoro. They are to plant rice in over 1,242 hectares of farmlands. 

He said that the fund assistance is pegged at P18,000 per hectare which is adequate to cover the costs of production.

It was learned that the production assistance for tobacco will be higher at P30,000 to P40,000 per hectare .

The funds are extended to the farmer-cooperators which , as official records show, are returned promptly by the recipients after the trading of their produce. 

The NTA chief is optimistic that the leaf farmers’ rice growing activities will contribute to the efforts of Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala which are aimed at attaining rice self-sufficiency by 2013, and President Aquino vision for food self-sufficiency by 2016.

Zaragoza said that in the past, fund assistance extended by NTA to farmers in the eight tobacco-producing provinces amounted to only P3.5 million. This, he said, was increased to P34 million at the start of this year, but the budget was not enough to finance farmers’ needs.

“We understand that in order to be more productive, viable, and relevant, tobacco farmers have to participate in all facets of production, training, and marketing. Di bale nang malugi ang NTA sa pagtulong sa magsasaka, basta’t magsasaka pa rin ang makikinabang (It doesn’t matter if NTA incurs loses while helping the farmers, for as long as the farmers are themselves  benefited), ” Zaragoza said.

According to Dr. Roberto Bonoan, NTA OIC-deputy administrator for operations, this year’s production assistance to tobacco farmers is 177 percent higher than that of last year, which was in the amount of  P7.6 million.

 He said that there are more farmer beneficiaries this year with their number 79 percent higher than that of last year’s 828 farmers. Land tilled with tobacco also increased which is reportedly  80.73 percent higher compared to last year’s 687 hectares.

He added that the inbred rice component of the agency’s Integrated Farming and Other Income-Generating Activities Project (IFOIGAP) posts an average yield of 5.2 metric tons of palay per hectare.  The volume of production is expected to reach 6,458 metric tons this year.