Govt builds 2,000 kms of farm to market roads, helping create more jobs

MANILA, Philippines - Starting this week, the Philippines’ agriculture department will build 2,000 kilometers of farm to market roads, helping create jobs for 53,000 workers, as part of the government’s economic stimulus program. The project, which will benefit more than 212,000 farmers across the country, involves the construction of roads in central Philippines and in the Mindanao Super Region. These are areas where major food production sites are located, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said in a statement. An estimated 567 kilometers of farm to market roads (FMRs) will be built in central Philippines, benefiting 56,760 farmers and creating 14,190 new jobs. Meanwhile, some 536.94 kilometers of roads will be constructed in Mindanao that will employ 13,424 workers and benefit 53,694 farmers. Similarly, an additional 420.80 kilometers of new roads will also be built within the North Luzon Agribusiness Quadrangle, an area where DA Secretary Arthur C. Yap has been designated by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as development champion. Once constructed, the road networks will generate 10,520 jobs, helping 42,080 farmers bring their goods to their markets more efficiently. An additional 366.80 kilometers of road networks will also be built in the Metro Luzon Urban Beltway, which includes Central Luzon, to help 36,680 farmers and create 9,170 jobs. Another 230.80 kilometers of FMRs will be constructed in other priority areas identified by the DA, which will create 5,770 jobs and benefit 23,080 farmers. Next: Road projects to connect marginal areas to major markets Road projects to connect marginal areas to major markets Besides complying with the provisions of the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA), these road projects – amounting to P5.3 billion all in all – will be located within key production areas, or locations that will help it be linked to places with higher road class systems and major markets or trading posts. Farm to market roads will also be constructed in sites that link other non-convergence areas within the Strategic Agricultural and Fisheries Development Zones (Safdzs), Community-Based Forest Management Agreements (CBFMAs), and Agrarian Reform Communities (ARCs) to markets and trading posts. These areas “may be located within the areas identified by the National Nutrition Council (NNC) as “very vulnerable areas," in line with the hunger mitigating measures of the government or within peace-conflicted areas. To maximize the use of DA funds, Yap said the DA is also shifting its focus this year on hard or "big-ticket" projects covering irrigation maintenance, postharvest facilities, farm to market roads, and rural extension work, in lieu of "soft" projects like fertilizer support to farmers. Instead of the fertilizer discount coupons, the department is providing organic fertilizer manufacturing support to farmers in 2,600 clusters or sites where the DA is channeling a bulk of its funds for intervention measures in 2009. These clusters of adjacent or neighboring farms are spread out across 48 provinces mostly in rainfed areas where per-hectare yields are below the national average of 3.8 tons of palay per hectare. Next: Farm to market roads form part of govt’s frontloading program Farm to market roads form part of govt’s frontloading program The farm to market roads project is part of the government’s initiatives to frontload labor-intensive projects in line with its P330-billion economic resiliency program intended to stimulate the domestic economy and generate about 1.5 million jobs by midyear alone. Yap, who is the Cabinet coordinator of the Comprehensive Livelihood and Emergency Employment Program (CLEEP) in Northern Luzon and Bohol, ordered DA regional directors to immediately bid out its labor-intensive, high-impact projects. The plan, said Yap, is for the DA to speed up the implementation of these intervention projects in the first semester of the year to create a lot of jobs and stimulate economic activity in the countryside by the time the full brunt of the global financial crisis is expected to be felt in the Philippines. He noted that expediting the bidding process would help speed up the release of funds for such projects, given that under government auditing rules, no disbursements can be made unless the bidding processes are completed and the winning bidders are named. - GMANews.TV