DA eyes $280 million financing from World Bank

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture is seeking $280 million in financing from the World Bank for the second part of the Philippine Rural Development Project.

In a briefing, PRDP deputy director Shandy Hubilla said the proposal has already been submitted to the National Economic and Development Authority-Investment Coordination Committee (NEDA-ICC) for approval.

“We have helped a lot during the first original financing and we have seen the good outcome of the projects under PRDP and so there has been an increase in demand from the LGUs (local government units) for this,” Hubilla said.

Once approved, the project will start early next year and run until 2024.

The World Bank-assisted PRDP started in 2014 and will end this year with total original loans reaching P30.71 billion with 1,086 subprojects mainly focused on infrastructure and enterprise development in the country.

The second component of the PRDP intends to focus on input, production, post-harvest, aggregation, processing and marketing.

PRDP’s midterm review showed positive results as target goals had already been surpassed.

The target of 30 percent increase each in real household income of farmer beneficiaries and those involved in enterprise development had reached 36 percent and 113 percent, respectively.

Increase in the value of marketed output hit 51 percent from the 41 percent target.

The PRDP aims to address gaps in the food supply chains and logistics of various agri-fishery products through the establishment and rehabilitation of rural infrastructure.

The PRDP will also focus on the provision of support services to jumpstart agribusiness enterprises.

Since the start of the project, PRDP has so far developed 119 value chain analysis on 66 commodities.

All the country’s 81 provinces have approved and updated their respective provincial commodity investment plans which they leverage with other national government agencies and even the private sector.

The PRDP has constructed 813 kilometers of roads and established 468 linear meters of bridges,  reducing travel time by 31 percent and bringing down transportation cost by 25 percent in project areas.

It has also provided 637 hectares of irrigation with more than 6,000 households benefiting from potable water systems.