STA. BARBARA—Farmers have been advised to embrace technology, mechanization, and credits backed by financial literacy if they want to improve their yields and profits.

This was what Senator Cynthia Villar, chair of the senate committee on agriculture, imparted to farmers at the opening of the nine-day 2018 Umaani Expo organized by the Pangasinan provincial government at the Provincial Nursery in Sta. Barbara.

Villar said these tools will not only boost the incomes of farmers but will also enable them to produce more food for the next generations.

She cited other countries like Vietnam that have begun using inbreed rice seeds that can produce at least six metric tons of rice per hectare compared to the four-ton harvest of Filipino farmers using the ordinary rice seeds.

In this regard, Villar said the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) in Nueva Ecija has the technology to produce inbreed seeds, which technology can be passed on to farm schools and impart to the farmers.

At the same time, Villar admitted that the Philippines has a hard time catching up with Vietnam because of the latter’s mechanization compared to the costly manual labor still being used in the country.

She said that farmers also need to have financial literacy so that they can compute and understand the profitability of their farming ventures and to know what crops can give them higher profit.

The senator noted the hesitance of farmers to apply for bank loans that offer just four percent interest per annum but would rather borrow from loan sharks that charge them one peso interest per day for every five pesos borrowed which is equivalent to 20 percent interest per day or a 7,200 percent p.a.

She advised farmers to tap the Agricultural Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (ACEF) with the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) where farmers can borrow a maximum of P1million each while cooperatives have access to P5 million maximum credit.

For sugar farmers, Villar said the Sugar Industry Development Fund gives P300 million credit fund annually through LBP while coconut farmers can also access funds through Coconut Industry Development Fund.

She also revealed the passage of the Farm Tourism law she authored that encourages existing model farms that abound in Pangasinan to become tourist farms by adopting activities that will interest tourists including organic restaurants and pasalubong centers.

She cited the successful conversion of a model farm to convert into farm school by partnering with Technical Educational Skills Development Authority (TESDA) to showcase modern farming technology as another new income opportunities.

Under the scheme, TESDA will bankroll the tuition and other expenses of student farmers every three months and will also issue certificate to the farmer graduates.

Villar said her farmer-friend in Bulacan, who only completed Grade VI, and is now a millionaire after he converted his farm into a farm school with with TESDA. (Leonardo Micua) 

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