P100-M credit facility to fund coco ventures
By Benjie Guevarra
Correspondent

A P100-million credit facility is being put up by the Arroyo administration to bankroll agribusiness ventures of coconut farmers long reeling from a global industry slump.
       To be sourced from the Coconut Industry Investment Fund (CIIF), this proposed fund will be used to establish an initial 100 coconut farmers agribusiness centers (CFACs) that will fund and oversee the implementation of enterprise development projects of viable coconut farmers’ organizations, according to Agriculture Secretary Domingo Panganiban.
       Falling prices abroad led to negative industry growth in the first quarter of 2006, a marked contrast from the robust performance of many other crops, including palay and corn, that is projected to generate for the farm sector a higher-than-expected expansion of 4.5 percent to 5 percent in the year’s first semester.
       Panganiban said that, following instructions from President Arroyo for the Philippine Coconut Authority to tap CIIF funds in helping coconut farmers, this amount will be deposited by PCA in “a conduit bank that will provide fund leverage for the establishment of a credit facility to facilitate credit access to more viable coconut farmers’ organizations.”
       Such funding will come from the CIIF Oil Mills Group, he said, under a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the PCA that covers seednut supply and a technical-cooperation arrangement in the implementation of approved agribusiness ventures.
       Under this MOA, the CIIF planting and replanting program will be implemented as a corporate initiative while the PCA will supply planting materials from its seed gardens, and provide related technical services, to loan beneficiaries, Panganiban said.
       “The PCA will supply the required number of high-yielding coconut seednuts produced from its seed gardens in Zamboanga, Cotabato, Bohol and other PCA local sources to the CIIF for its coconut planting and replanting program,” he said.
       “Regional, provincial and municipal field personnel of PCA will provide technical assistance in the establishment of the CIIF nurseries, marketing, distribution of coconut planting materials, fielded planted activities, coconut fertilization and other agronomic and pest management activities,” he added.
       Panganiban said the CIIF Oil Mills, in turn, will pay for the seednuts that PCA will supply for the CIIF coconut planting and replanting program, including coordinated delivery schedule activities.
       Coconut and other erstwhile top earners pineapple and mango have suffered unbroken setbacks in recent years either because of declining production or softening prices for these commodities here and abroad.
       In its first-quarter report that was released earlier this month, the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS) had bared that despite higher yields, plummeting prices slashed first-quarter earnings from coconut to P11.28 billion, or minus 8.23 percent from its year-ago level.
       Pineapple and tobacco similarly posted negative growth of minus 15.8 percent and 4.27 percent, respectively, during the same three months to March, BAS reported.
       Coconut’s performance was similar to that of tobacco as falling prices negated the higher yields in the first quarter, BAS reported. “Coconut farms came up with another 2.13 percent growth in production this year,” it said. “The absence of disasters in the previous quarters in Luzon and the occurrence of the mild La Niña in the Visayas and Mindanao had beneficial effects on coconut production.”
       In contrast, palay and corn along with four more crops—sugar cane, banana, coffee and rubber—posted double- to triple-digit growth figures over the January-March period that enabled the agriculture sector to pull off an impressive yield jump of 11 percent with a value of P230.5 billion.
       A 20-year high in global prices enabled sugar cane to post a 39-percent increase in earnings to P14.5 billion, while higher output induced income hikes of 20 percent to P10.98 billion for banana, and 19 percent to P1.7 billion for coffee, during the same period.