SCIENCE CITY OF MUNOZ – The Department of Agriculture (DA) has scrapped the fertilizer subsidy to the rice farmers which was reportedly attended by some irregularities.
Instead, it will funnel most of its funds for intervention programs into “hard” projects such as irrigation maintenance and postharvest facilities.
During a recent Senate hearing on the Department’s proposed budget for 2009, Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said that DA will do away with its subsidy program for the petrochemical input. “It will instead fund capacity building programs meant to encourage farmers to go on organic farming and produce their own organic fertilizers.”
Yap said earlier that this intensified push for organic farming will initially focus next year on providing organic fertilizer manufacturing support to farmers tilling 400,000 hectares, or 10 percent of the estimated four million hectares of palay fields nationwide.
He also said farm productivity programs supportive of President Arroyo’s centerpiece food security agenda dubbed FIELDS, will be given full attention by his department.
FIELDS stands for Fertilizer, Irrigation and other rural infrastructure, Education and extension work, Loans, Dryers and other postharvest facilities, and Seeds.
“The DA budget is going to concentrate on hard infrastructure programs,” he said in a press release. “We are not going to be giving soft projects anymore,” he added.
He also said: “So whether it’s palay, corn, high-value crops, fisheries, all of our intervention programs supportive of FIELDS will be channeled mainly to hard infrastructure projects and postharvest facilities along with agricultural extension work.”
Yap said that in 2009, his department will shift fertilizer support to balance fertilization. Farm communities that are going to go into organic agriculture and organic fertilization will be assisted for capacity building.
During the last cropping season, the DA issued fertilizer discount coupons as a way of providing assistance to the farmers who were hit by the sudden increase of petroleum-based fertilizer.
The good intention of the subsidy fertilizer subsidy scheme was complained of by the farmers themselves as they averred that it was attended by irregularities.
Among the irregularities mentioned by the farmers included the P100 deduction to the phase value of P250 in each of the coupon when they presented it to the accredited fertilizer dealers. The dealers, later argued that the P100 deduction was meant to compensate for the long period entailed in the presentation, processing of claims and the subsequent release of the payment.
Other farmers said that instead of granular fertilizer which is the one they preferred, they were given liquid fertilizers. They said the liquid fertilizers appeared of low quality but was priced stiffly.
