CEBU City, Philippines—The Department of Agriculture (DA) will soon release the P5,000 cash subsidy for over 64,000 rice farmers in the provinces of Bohol and Negros Oriental.
In a statement posted on its Facebook page, DA-7 regional executive director Salvador Diputado said the region submitted the DA central office 64,0333 farmers for processing the cash subsidy. This figure surpassed the 62,142 regional target.
Based on the guidelines for DA’s Financial Subsidy for Rice Farmers (FSRF), only rice farmers tilling below one hectare and are duly registered in the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA) are qualified to avail of the P 5,000 cash assistance.
The FSRF is an intervention that will support the rice farmers who are affected of the quarantine due to COVID-19 pandemic.
According to DA-7, 1,497 farmers have already received their cash subsidy because they already have an existing Land Bank of the Philippines, which serve as the conduit for the assistance.
Diputado explained that for Central Visayas, only Bohol and Negros Oriental were included due to the areas planted to rice, in accordance with the guidelines of the program.
Bohol is the top producer of palay and has contributed over 70 percent of the region’s total palay production in 2018.
“These 64 thousand rice farmers, which we submit to Central Office, took us sometime in encoding. We need to verify and validate to avoid duplication of entries. There are instances that some farmers will fill-up the RSBSA forms twice or thrice because their farms are located in different municipalities,” he said.
“Our Municipal Agricultural Offices (MAOs) in the municipalities who facilitated for the survey and listing cannot identify that this farmer A was able to sign the RSBSA in other municipalities. Hence, when they submit the RSBSA in the region, once we encoded it, we need to verify for double name entries,” Diputado added.
He revealed that the latest report from LBP-Bohol indicates that the release of the 5k dole out from Land Bank will start on Friday, May 8 2020. /bmjo