Mindanao is getting the bigger chunk in terms of approval of projects in the Department of Agriculture (DA) Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) through funding from the World Bank, the Philippine Government and Local Government Units (LGUs).
In a press conference hosted by DA in Cagayan de Oro on 8 September 2015, the department reiterated that in fact more than 50% of the approved project for infrastructure is from Mindanao.
DA Undersecretary Emerson Palad said that the ultimate goal of PRDP is to increase income of farmers by 30% at the end of the project.
PRDP is a six year national government platform for an inclusive, value chain-oriented and climate resilient agriculture and fisheries sector. It is the upscale version of the Mindanao Rural Development Program (MRDP) where innovations are introduced to address current and emerging challenges like climate change and make rural development more effective.
Arnel De Mesa, Deputy Project Director of PRDP said that there is no specific budget allocation per island for this project. With a total of P27.5B fund resources to spend for six years, 67% or P18.5B goes to infrastructure support, 22% or P7B goes to investments in enterprise, 8% goes to planning and 2% goes to project management.
The projects that will be approved come from the proposals of each LGU. However, prior to the approval, proposals must go through processes.
First, proposal must be demand driven and must be the need of the community. Second, it must be commodity and market driven wherein there is an assurance of income due to its demand in the market, thus will increase income and generate employment. Third, an LGU must have a Provincial Commodity Investment Plan (PCIP) where various stakeholders have been consulted.
According to DA regional director Lealyn Ramos, the LGUs of Mindanao have been receptive about the program. This is because they will only spend 10% of the total budget for a project approved; 80% would come from the World Bank and the other 10% from the national government.
Ramos said that there is no limit to the project an LGU wants to propose provided that they can produce their 10% share and they can provide documents.
In Mindanao, she said that there are already 75 provincial LGUs out of 81 who are engaged in PRDP. Total of 23 farm-to-market road (FMR) projects or P930M budget have already been approved for Northern Mindanao. Meanwhile, P4.9B worth of various projects have already been approved for Mindanao island and another P4.9B is waitlisted for review.
Ramos said that we are now into up scaling of products. If a farmer is into cacao, then products would include chocolates; there will be factory and packaging will be improved.
The Department reiterates that they are very strict in terms of the implementation of this project. They have now what you call online tracking tool, geotag, wherein photos of the before, during and after of the project will be put online by contractors. Through geotagging, they will know if a project is already done in the area. The department assures that there is no duplication of project in the same area. (JMOR/PIA10)
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