The Presidential Agrarian Reform Council has approved a one-year extension for the continuous provision of credit assistance and capacity development worth P87.3431 million to benefit 60 agrarian reform beneficiary organizations.
Secretary John Castriciones said the council passed Executive Committee Resolution No. 2020-SP-01 that shall benefit over 1,800 farmer-beneficiaries nationwide.
The PARC members said the proposed one-year term extension of the credit assistance program for program beneficiaries development window 3 meritorious, he cited.
“The 60 ARBOs are expected to be provided with P76 million (87 percent) credit assistance and P11.341 million (13 percent) capacity building support. Key officers and staff of ARBOs will be provided with trainings which will include agri-enterprise management and operations, governance and institution-building, financial literacy, among others,” he said.
In 1995, the executive committee approved to allocate from the agrarian reform fund’s credit funds for the program to provide credit assistance to ARBOs for their agricultural production activities. On Feb. 16, 2017 PARC excom again approved to continue providing credit to existing ARBO-borrowers, the DAR secretary note
“The implementation of the CAP-PBD window 3 extension started on March 15, 2018 and ended on March 15, 2020,” he said.
The extension will also intensify loan collections from ARBOs with outstanding loans under the program.
“The program has significantly contributed to credit access of non-bankable ARBs with the Land Bank of the Philippines and other financial institutions. As of 31 Dec. 2019, a total of P392.20 million loans were released to 112 ARBOs which benefitted some 6,854 ARBs,” Castriciones noted.
“At the end of the implementation of the one-year term extension of the CAP-PBD, a program assessment will be conducted by the DAR-Support Services Office and the assessment report shall be submitted to the PARC Executive Committee, for consideration,” he said.