DA to restore rice seed subsidy scheme

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Agriculture (DA) is reinstalling a subsidy scheme for rice seeds in an aim to sustain agricultural production amid renewed optimism arising from new private sector collaboration.

DA Secretary Proceso J. Alcala said DA will restore this year the subsidy for rice seeds after completing a review of the program. However, government will only fund the rice seed subsidy for the next two years after which it expects farmers to become capable of financing their acquisition of high-yielding seeds.

“I think we’ll give it for two years. It will be based on farmers’ choice,” Alcala told reporters during the Agriculture and Fisheries Summit (AFS).

This means a farmer can choose to use the subsidy to buy his choice of hybrid rice seed brand or any certified seed. Alcala did not say though how much budget is estimated to be poured back to the seed subsidy and the specific scheme for the release.

DA has backtracked on an earlier decision to withdraw the seed subsidy for rice, having earlier declared it was opting to put more investments in infrastructure (irrigation, farm to marker roads). It earlier suspected irregularities in the subsidy’s release and is causing it to plan to opt to directly help poor farmers through a similar conditional cash transfer program as that implemented by another government agency. DA suspended the subsidy at the start of the Aquino Administration in 2010.

The government through the DA and the Congressional Oversight Committee on Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization (COCAFM) has been planning to raise farm production and to renew a program on farm modernization. Such restoration of the seed subsidy must be part of the plan, at least for the next two years.

This road-mapping for farm modernization and food sufficiency must also be different from previous road-mapping activity of the government, according to COCAFM. All agriculture crops already have a roadmap that DA has been trying to implement for many years. “(But) you now have a new government, one elected in an unpredecedented, unparalleled manner. Your (previous) roadmaps have been under a context of a different time. So while there is momentum, we would like to generate enough critical support from the sector. There’s goodwill in the administration, and we should seize that opportunity,” said COCAFM member and Senate Committee Chairman Francis N. Pangilinan during the AFS. –MELODY M. AGUIBA, Manila Bulletin