An evaluation report on the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund calls for a review of Philippine Crop Insurance Corp.’s minimum land use requirement to insure loans to allow more farmers to have access to formal lending institutions.
The report highlighted how smallholder farmers were being ruled out for insurance by PCIC, which requires the land to be at least a fourth of a hectare.
PCIC’s corporate mandate is to provide insurance protection to the agricultural stakeholders particularly the subsistence farmers against loss of their crops and/or non-crop agricultural assets from natural calamities such as typhoons, floods, droughts, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, plant pests and diseases.
According to the latest RCEF evaluation, credit issues could be solved if microfinance institutions are integrated into the program as conduit, so as to move away from retail lending and reach more poor rice farmers.
Only a small percentage of the interviewed farmers received credit from RCEF, possibly reflecting the somewhat limited reach of the RCEF credit program. The analysis focuses on a comparison of farmers who availed of credit from any source compared with those who did not receive credit.