MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture- Agricultural Credit Policy Council (DA-ACPC) released over P5.39 billion worth of loans to agricultural stakeholders last year, in line with its mandate of promoting effective and sustainable delivery of financial services to the countryside.
In a statement, the ACPC said the released loans, in cooperation with its program partners, benefited 95,943 small farmers and fisherfolk (SFF) and 396 agri-fishery-based micro and small enterprises (MSEs) and farmer/fisher organizations (FFOs) nationwide.
“The DA-ACPC’s credit programs, such as the Kapital Access for Young Agripreneurs (KAYA), Agrinegosyo (ANYO), and SURE COVID-19, have helped beneficiaries across the country to recover from the damaging effects of the pandemic and other calamities,” Agriculture Secretary William Dar said.
The credit programs offer interest- and collateral-free loans to SFF, MSEs and FFOs.
“We salute our farmers and fisherfolk who play a vital role in boosting food production to attain higher levels of food sufficiency for the country.It is crucial to provide them with accessible, timely and affordable assistance to finance their agri and fishery ventures,”Dar said.
With the intensified implementation of its credit programs, the ACPC said it was able to provide financial service access to an additional 73 unbanked municipalities, increasing its reach to 436 out of the 496 total unbanked municipalities in the country and contributing to financial inclusion.
“As a support component for the agency’s credit programs, numerous loan applicants, especially young agripreneurs and start-up businesses, underwent capacity building programs including Business Plan Preparation, Financial Literacy, Simple Bookkeeping, Entrepreneurship, Effective Sales and Marketing and other relevant training to help make their projects feasible and successful,”the ACPC said.
The agency also collaborated with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) last year for the conduct of research studies including Countryside Bank Survey, Development of a Credit Scoring Model for Farmers and Fisherfolk, and The State of Financial Inclusion of Farmers and Fisherfolk.
“These are in addition to the several ongoing DA-ACPC policy and action researches (Project ASCEnD, Small Farmers and Fisherfolk Indebtedness Survey, and Mid-Term Evaluation of the PLEA and SURE Programs) aimed at increasing the flow of credit to the agriculture and fisheries sectors,”the ACPC said.
The ACPC also strengthened its digitalization efforts for its various programs and internal processes last year.
These include the enhancement of the online application portal called the ACPC Access for easier facilitation of loan applications; the launching of a digital platform for submission of loan disbursement reports by partner lending conduits for more efficient data reporting; and the development of the ACPC Dashboard – an interactive digital tool for credit program monitoring and evaluation.