UN agency to spend $16M for inbred rice seeds in RP

MANILA, Philippines - The International Fund for Agricultural Development of the United Nations is spending $16 million for the purchase of inbred rice seeds for distribution to impoverished farmers by the first planting season next year. In a conference in Mandaluyong City this week, Sana F. K. Jatta, IFAD country program manager for the Philippines, said the UN is concerned about the rice crisis that hit the country early this year and said IFAD is working with the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Agrarian Reform to stave off its recurrence. Apart from pumping in $16 million for inbred seeds, Jatta revealed that IFAD has signed a deal with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization to develop upland communal irrigation systems to produce more rice and other crops. IFAD will spend $500,000 for this, while FAO will put up a similar fund to benefit upland dwellers of the Cordillera, the Visayas and Mindanao. Jatta said IFAD will be strictly monitoring the seed distribution program to ensure that poor landless farmers and members of indigenous groups would get the seeds, plant them and harvest the grain later on. IFAD vice president Kanayo Nwanze said the agency has been satisfied with the work of its unit in the Philippines, and would endorse the projects proposed by Jatta in the next IFAD board meeting in December. Globally, he added, IFAD is parlaying $200 million to finance programs to counter the adverse effects of spiraling food prices, noting that the Philippines is a major arena of the battle. The IFAD officer said apart from distributing seeds, his agency is also working with both the DA and the DAR to improve irrigation facilities in upland areas, where indigenous peoples live and work, and in farms of beneficiaries of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. Agribusiness is also a key component of the development program promoted by IFAD, he said, along with the coastal resources management programs, which will be funded to the extent of $66 million in the next five years. He said IFAD will be present in 24 poor provinces nationwide, working in projects with funding support from the Asian Development Bank. The regions targeted by IFAD are the Cordillera Administrative Region, Regions 5, 6, 7 and 8 in the Visayas and Regions 9, 10, 12 and ARMM in Mindanao. Marinduque and Romblon will also benefit from IFAD projects. - GMANews.TV