Gov’t opens fund access for tomato farmers

Agriculture Secretary Luis P. Lorenzo Jr. led the launching recently in Sarrat, Ilocos Norte of a new Quedancor financing scheme to help farmers improve the quality of their tomato produce.

Lorenzo said the funding program is in conjunction with the government’s continuing efforts to create more jobs and better production in agriculture.

With Quedancor as the lead agency, the program aims to provide financing for the purchase of hybrid tomato seeds and farm inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides as well as the needed capital for land preparation.

Quedancor president and CEO Nelson C. Buenaflor said the program will provide groups of tomato farmers loans equivalent to P27,500 per hectare for a maximum of five hectares per individual borrower at a minimum interest rate. The loan will be released in the form of farm inputs as covered by purchase/job orders and also in cash intended for land preparation expenses.

The province of Ilocos Norte was chosen as the pilot area. The target is to serve the requirements of 4,000 tomato farmers cultivating some 1,000 hectares of land. During the launching held inside the compound of the Northern Foods Corp., an initial P50,000 loan was released to the first batch consisting of 21 tomato farmers divided into five groups.