MANILA, Philippines — Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala expects credit to flow to the farming and fisheries sector as rural banks slash interest rates to only 15 percent and commercial banks abide by the repealed Agri-Agra Law.

Alcala stressed that rural banks are a lynchpin of agricultural growth and revealed that these banks have slashed their interest rate to 15 percent, much smaller than the current rate that ranges from 25 percent to 36 percent.

He noted as well that the Department of Agriculture (DA) will be pushing for the wider use of hybrid rice varieties developed by the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) and P50,000 will be extended as loans to them by the Land Bank of the Philippines (Land Bank) as incentives.

These hybrids are expected to raise palay output from 15 percent to 20 percent, which would ensure that the bank will be paid immediately, Alcala added.

The program was designed by the National Rice Program through director Dante Delima, he said.

On the issue of meeting the target of rice self-sufficiency next year, Alcala revealed that even the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN), which initially doubted the capability of the DA to meet the goal, is now saying the target may be met if all the appropriate interventions are undertaken.

Alcala also bared that the DA is working to reduce the middlemen in the supply chain and is opening four trading centers in the Cordillera to allow farmers better access to direct buyers.

DA is also mulling the provision of vehicles for farmers’ cooperatives to permit them to bring their produce to the markets and thus eliminate middlemen who make huge products since they transport the crops themselves.

Alcala stressed that DA had been frontloading funds for the National Irrigation Administration (NISA) to ensure that irrigation reaches all the farms producing rice and other crops.

He revealed that the department achieved a minor miracle in Northern Samar by completing an irrigation project that took 10 years to finish.

Alcala still has to turn his attention to a farm-to-market (FMR) project in Dolores, Eastern Samar that has been delayed for several years, with several contractors working on the same project.

This road, farmers claimed, would boost production in 6,000 hectares of upland farms, long considered to be the rice granary of Eastern Samar.

To intensify food production in Mindanao, Alcala explained that 40 percent of the DA’s budget has been allocated to the island-region, which has fertile land and good weather.

The DA chief reiterated that since Mindanao is relatively free of typhoons, he will be working to open up vast garlic and onion plantations in South Cotabato, including bulk of the 2,500-hectare land around the Gen. Santos Airport that used to be under the pasture lease of the Alcantara Group.