SRA eases lending for sugar farmers

MANILA, Philippines — The Sugar Regulatory Administration plans to cut the interest rate of the credit program under the Sugarcane Industry Development Act (SIDA) to help farmers improve productivity as the law’s P2-billion budget has been reduced in the last four years.

SRA administrator Hermenegildo Serafica said the agency and the Land Bank of the Philippines have proposed to the Socialized Credit Program (SCP) Committee the lowering of interest rates from the current 6.5 percent to just 3.5 percent interest per annum to cover administrative costs.

The SRA has also submitted to the SCP committee the proposal for the accreditation of planters associations as loan conduits to facilitate loans for their small farmer members.

Under the SIDA, the credit program will have an allocation of 15 percent of the P2 billion yearly budget or about P300 million.

However, the SIDA budget has been cut over the years from P2 billion in 2016, P1.5 billion in 2017, P1 billion in 2018 and P500 million last year.

In fact, only P3 billion had been translated to the industry in the past four years from the supposed P8 billion total since the enactment of the law in 2015.

The SRA was only successful in implementing the infrastructure support portion of the law and the scholarship grant. The other components including block farms, capacity building and socialized credit have been underperforming.

Serafica vowed to keep pushing for the faster and more efficient implementation of SIDA programs.

This after lawmakers questioned the slow utilization of funds and possible amendments to the law to strengthen the sugarcane industry.

“Admittedly, there have been significant issues. These are part of the birthing pains which SRA did not expect but had since mitigated,” Serafica said.

Among the mitigations implemented by SRA include closer coordination with partner implementing agencies, multi-year memorandum of agreement with the Department of Public Works and Highways for infrastructure projects and multi-year treatment of research projects due to the long gestation period of sugarcane research.

Serafica said lawmakers should give the law the time to be fully realized as it has only been five years since it has been signed.

The law mandates, among others, the construction of farm to mill roads, support for the strengthening of block farms of at least 30 hectares in area, formed out of small individual farms, to make them more productive and profitable as commercial enterprises.

The SIDA was enacted in recognition that the sugarcane industry plays a vital role in the country’s economic development.

The law lays down the conditions for the maximization of the country’s sugarcane resources and provides for increasing the competitiveness of the sugarcane industry, improving the incomes of farmers and farm workers through improved productivity, product diversification, job generation and increased efficiency of sugar mills.