LOREN ASKS NFA TO ALLOW FARMERS TO USE ITS DRYERS, OTHER POST-HARVEST MACHINES TO SAVE CROPS, DA TO HELP EASE UP CREDIT RATES FOR FARMERS THIS CRISIS

SENATOR LOREN LEGARDA, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, the Congressional Oversight Committee on Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization (COCAFM) and Senate Oversight Committee on Climate Change (SOCC) asks the National Food Authority (NFA) to allow farmers to use its dryers and other production and post-production machineries to save crops and reduce farm losses resulting from damage of Ondoy and Pepeng.

In her visits to the countryside, the lady senator who has been warning the country about the need to prepare for the effects of erratic weather changes, learned of farmers' requests to use the equipment and facilities of the NFA, a government corporation mandated to ensure food buffer stock and stabilize food prices. "I learned that there are requests for the use of NFA dryers because farmers who dry their palay on the road are afraid of losing their precious harvest if they cannot dry them because of continuous rains. And when they tried asking the NFA provincial office, they were told that electricity is expensive.", Loren said.

"I appeal to Secretary Arthur Yap who is the chair of the NFA board and Administrator Jessup Navarro to consider the farmers' requests. The secretary can include electricity expense in the Calamity Fund for agriculture and fisheries. Here is an opportunity for us to reduce our rice importation and help our food producers. A great part of the donations we are receiving and the additional Calamity Fund we approved in Congress is for the basic needs of our people. Here are our farmers, they will produce food for themselves and for us. Let us help them help themselves and others. Let us allow them to use NFA facilities. The farmers need all the help especially that another super typhoon is coming and they have not even recovered from Ondoy and Pepeng."

Loren is aghast that in times of crisis our government is paralyzed by government policies. She exclaimed: "Our functionaries cannot think beyond their assigned duties and inform their higher ups what to do to help our farmers�the producers of our food. Look at those heroes in the floods�what they do to save others. When what is at stake is life itself they do the impossible and unthinkable solutions, even treading electric cables and building makeshift boats from discarded wood."

Moreover, Loren is mulling over the idea of easing up credit for farmers and fisherfolk this season by using a part of the additional calamity fund and donations from abroad as guarantee for concessional credit. "Lending to our poor farmers and fisherfolk with concessional terms is better than giving them outright grants during this critical time. We are receiving donations for the poor from all over the world. Let us use this to help them. The monetary sector worries about distorting the credit market and future defaulting of our food producers? This is why we want to pass the National Agriculture and Fisheries Extension System, we want the local extension workers to help our farmers and fisherfolk to produce profitably using modern technologies that will give them higher yield and help them pay their loans. We just have to trust that we will not go through the same mistakes in the past because our people have learned their lessons.", Loren explained. "Farmers want to buy their dryers and mobile millers, even their own certified seeds and fertilizers. Let us make them autonomous decisionmakers. But let our extension workers do their job of showing the farmers and fisherfolk the best options in technologies and markets and guiding them how to be disciplined in repaying loans. I will present this to the Land Bank of the Philippines during the consultation with the agriculture sector. Maybe we do not have to distort the lending rates but only allow deferred payments.

" "I am calling a the agriculture departments and other agencies concerned in the implementation of the climate change provision of the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act of 1997 (AFMA) this coming week to talk about the Calamity Plan for agriculture and fisheries. We should be able to use the funds available including forthcoming donations to provide the basic needs of our people in the short term as well as plans for the long-term food security of the country.", Loren said. AFMA has a provision for climate change which says "The Department (of Agriculture) in coordination with the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Service Administration (PAGASA) and such other appropriate governmental agencies, shall devise a method of regularly monitoring and considering the effect of global climate changes, weather disturbances, and annual productivity cycles for the purpose of forecasting and formulating agriculture and fisheries production programs."