DAVAO CITY – A grant worth at least $6.3 million (approximately over P300 million) for an agriculture-related project in various areas of Mindanao has been approved by the World Bank (WB), Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap announced here.

Yap said the project, to be financed from the WB’s “Global Environment Facility,” is part of the second phase of the Mindanao Rural Development Program (MRDP) which is designed to alleviate poverty affecting many inhabitants of the country’s second largest island region.

Yap said in a published statement that the WB reported the grant will also be utilized to increase by some 30 percent the fish production in several Mindanao coastal municipalities.

The WB added that the project also seeks to reduce by 10 percent the silt and sediment in identified coastal areas to increase live coral and sea grass cover.

According to the bank, the project will ultimately “improve public awareness and community participation in an effort to address environment issues in the entire southern Philippines.”

The project specifically aims at boosting the fisheries and forestry sectors which are significant in the ultimate upliftment of Mindanao’s socio-economic advancement, the WB stressed.

Quoting the Agriculture secretary, WB country director Bert Hofman said, “For 14 years, fishing accounts for an average of four-percent of the total gross domestic product (GDP) of the country even as it accounted for about two-percent the gross value added in the agriculture, fishery and forestry sectors.

In Mindanao, these sectors are important as they accounted for one-third of the island region’s GDP.

Hofman, noted that due to global climatic change, the Philippines and other developing nations are at risk of a deteriorating overall production and therefore projects that will help address climate change.