The Department of Agriculture’s (DA) P5.85-billion fertilizer voucher program, which will provide subsidies to planters, aims to cover some 3 million hectares of rice farms.
Eligible rice farmers may use the fertilizer voucher to buy fertilizer grades, including complete, urea, ammonium sulfate, ammonium phosphate, and muriate of potash.
The DA recently issued Memorandum Order (MO) 22 which outlined the implementing guidelines for its fertilizer program.
Under the program, discount vouchers will be used by farmer-beneficiaries to claim fertilizers at accredited merchants. The vouchers will have a value equivalent to P1,131 per hectare for inbred rice and P2,262 per hectare for hybrid rice.
“The DA recognizes the importance of fertilizer application in order to fully maximize the yield potential of a crop or plant. Thus, fertilizer distribution has been one of the activities supported in recent years by the DA banner programs to aid farmers in increasing farm productivity and their income,” the DA said.
“This activity aims to ensure the timely availability of the needed fertilizer for rice production in the targeted areas through the distribution of fertilizer discount vouchers.”
MO 22 stipulated that the project will cover the 2022 wet crop season and the 2022-2023 dry cropping season in “selected rice-producing municipalities and provinces” in all regions nationwide.
Under the rules, the farmer-beneficiaries are “preferably” the ones who have already received high-quality seeds from the government “to allow them to adopt the full high yielding technology practices.”
“Only farmers that are registered under the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture [RSBSA] and encoded in the National Farmers’ and Fishers’ Online-Registry System [NFFRS] or the National Farmers and Fisheries Information System [NFFIS] shall be eligible to receive this support,” MO 22 read.
Based on the MO, the area per farmer will be based on the actual area planted as reflected in the master list of seed beneficiaries or master list of validated farmers who planted using their own or self-purchased seeds.
“However, should the actual area exceed the area reflected in the encoded NFFIS/NFFRS, the area registered in the NFFIS/NFFRS shall be followed,” it read.
Farmers who will get the fertilizer voucher, which is for one-time use only, must personally bring the printed discount voucher together with proof of identification to accredited merchants.
Under the MO, Central Luzon will have the largest budget for the fertilizer voucher program at P761.097 million since it has the largest rice area at 396,907 hectares. It was followed by Region 2 with a total allocation of P715.488 million for 365,036 hectares of rice farms. (Jasper Y. Arcalas)
SOURCE: https://businessmirror.com.ph
