MALASIQUI, Pangasinan – Some 3,000 rice farmers from Solsona, Ilocos Norte will have the first try on the new interventions monitoring card (IMC) that Department of Agriculture (DA) will pilot by November, in time for the dry cropping season.
Lea Coloma, DA Ilocos Region Rice Farmer Financial Assistance (RFFA) focal person, in a phone interview Wednesday, said the new IMC will be used to distribute not only the RFFA but also the fertilizer and seed vouchers, and eventually all interventions for farmers.
She said the Solsona farmers, who are registered under the registry system for basic sectors in agriculture (RSBSA), qualified for the pilot program because they do not have pending transactions and the land area they are tilling have around 4,000 hectares for rice alone.
“It (new card) will enable the farmers to obtain a quick response (QR) code, which they could present and be scanned by an accredited merchant where they opted to purchase their seeds or fertilizers,” she said.
RFFA program is funded from excess tariff collections from rice importation.
Under this program, each RSBSA-registered farmer will receive PHP5,000 seed subsidy per hectare and PHP3,400 per hectare for the fertilizer subsidy, she added.
Coloma said farmers who are part of a cluster, which works like a cooperative, will get the full subsidy equivalent to their registered total land area. But those who are not part of the clustering will only get the equivalent to five hectares maximum subsidy.
She said some of the around 400,000 rice farmers in the region have not claimed their assistance given since January, but they have until end-September this year to do it otherwise, the funds will be reverted to the DA. (PNA)
