Quedancor trains farmers to be entrepreneurs

Nearly 200,000 small farmers nationwide have been enrolled free training and seminar on credit availment and project management. Quedancor, the government’s credit and guarantee company, provides this kind of assistance to its clients in the agri-fishery sub-sector.

According to Quedancor president and CEO Nelson C. Buenaflor, 193,086 small farmers across the nation were benefited by the agency’s free entrepreneurial course. Of this figure, 87,879 were urban and rural residents planning to set-up small livelihood projects in their communities; 21,601 self-reliant farmers engaged in rice/corn production; 40,989 farmers planning to cultivate hybrid rice; 27,639 hybrid corn farmers; 13,649 inbred rice farmers; 921 cotton growers; and 408 workers in the dairy industry.

The government’s credit arm revealed that a total of P201.1 million have already been released to qualified enrollees to jumpstart their chosen project. "This is already a great achievement since we have just started our farmer enrolment campaign last September of this year," Buenaflor said.

Quedancor’s farmer enrolment campaign covers the implementation of President Arroyo’s priority programs on hybrid rice cultivation, hybrid corn propagation, inbred rice farmer system, and specialized programs for the urban and rural poor, cotton and dairy industries. The corporation provides credit and guarantee services for these programs utilizing a revolutionized approach for rural finance – the Self Reliant Team or SRT Model.

"The SRT approach is an innovative financing system that puts premium on the Filipino’s value for self-reliance, teamwork and innate entrepreneurial skills. And we do it through the promotion of Quedancor’s non-collateralized and low-bearing interest financing programs," Buenaflor explained.