The Department of Agriculture (DA) has approved a P200-million microfinancing for priority commodities as rice, corn, and high-value crops, particularly for poverty-stricken areas in Bicol.
Other priority commodities to be financed by the AFMP are banana, rubber, pineapple, vegetables, etc., poultry, livestock and fishery products.
Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap approved the implementing guidelines for the Agri-Fishery Microfinance Program (AFMP) which will determine criteria for lending of the P200-million fund from the Agro-industry Modernization Credit and Financing Program (AMCFP), a AMCFP is a program that took over DA’s previous direct lending program as mandated by the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act which is based on the concept that lending should be market-dictated.
The AFMP is expected to have more funds for lending for priority sectors particularly including government-run Land Bank of the Philippines’s (LBP) P1.5 billion micro-financing program.
The program is tapping LBP and other conduits to retail the credit.
The AFMP’s two components are micro-finance and the value chain financing.
|
