Loan program for farmers gets P3.8B from DBM

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) on Wednesday announced the allocation of P3.4 billion to the Subsidy 2 Credit (S2C) Program of the Department of Agriculture (DA) for fiscal year 2019.

The S2C is DA’s loan program for farmers.

“The S2C program will offer flexible non-collateralized production loans, quick response post-disaster loans without interest, and loans for the acquisition of farmer equipment and machinery, among others,” DBM Secretary Benjamin Diokno said in a statement.

In addition, the program establishes credit windows to support the agricultural enterprises of indigenous people households and to finance farmer organizations engaged in the trading, marketing, and processing of agri-fishery products.

To ensure the effectivity of the S2C, the DA will create Credit Management Teams (CMT) to identify potential conduits and borrowers and Loan Facilitation Teams (LFTs) in every province with the task of assisting interested and qualified small farmers and fisherfolk (SFF) and other agricultural stakeholders.

The program will also tap private lending institutions as conduits for qualified SFFs in order to increase their participation in agriculture.

The DA plans full implementation of the S2C program by FY 2020, DBM said.  /muf