THE Department of Agriculture (DA) said it approved P20.13 billion worth of infrastructure and enterprise development subprojects, aiming to hike production of high-value crops in the country, under the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP).
Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said that as of May 5, the PRDP-approved various infrastructure and enterprise development subprojects supporting the local production of coconut, abaca, banana, rubber and coffee.
“For infrastructure development, the project has approved 372 subprojects worth P19.3 billion. The enterprise-development component has 479 approved subprojects with a total cost of P829.97 million,” Piñol said in a statement on May 9.
Piñol said most of the approved infrastructure subprojects are farm-to-market roads (FMRs) with a total length of 1,642 kilometers. The 225 FMR projects cost about P17.82 billion or 89 percent of the entire infrastructure portfolio, which is expected to benefit at least 316,000 households across the country, Piñol said.
“We have already completed 31 FMRs stretching 105 kilometers, while 194 FMRs equivalent to 1,537 kilometers are at various stages of implementation and procurement,” Piñol said.
The remaining P1.48 billion worth of approved infrastructure-development subprojects include, among others, communal irrigation systems, potable water systems and solar dryers and facilities of enterprise-development subprojects, such as warehouses and processing centers, Piñol said.
The DA chief said under the PRDP’s enterprise-development component, at least 678 proponent groups composed of farmers or fishers associations and cooperatives have benefitted from the approved subprojects.
“This represents 90,775 individual farmer beneficiaries, who are members of the groups. This does not include nonmembers who will benefit from our interventions,” Piñol said.
There are 374 infrastructure and enterprise-development subprojects amounting to P24.163 billion under the pipeline, he said.
“Aside from the total approved infrastructure subprojects, there are 290 pipelined subprojects amounting to P23.24 billion, which the department hopes will be covered by its proposal for the PRDP’s expansion,” he said.
“The enterprise-development component reported it has 84 pipelined subprojects worth P923.58 million in its portfolio,” he said.