Department of Agriculture (DA) Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban and the DA Regional Executive Directors tackled the program updates, urgent concerns, ways forward, and deliverables for the Fertilizer Assistance to Rice Farmers on November 18, 2022.
The discussions follow the November 15 meeting of the DA Operations Group and the Philippine International Trading Corporation (PITC), wherein the PITC established that the imported fertilizers will arrive in February 2023, at the earliest.
To address the constraints, the DA Management will pursue the Fertilizer Discount Voucher (FDV) support under the National Rice Program for the Dry Season 2022–2023 with amendments to the Memorandum Order (MO) No. 65 or the implementing guidelines of the FY 2022.
Assistant Secretary for Operations Arnel De Mesa presented the amendments to the MO, the allocations per region, and the important deliverables and deadlines for the Regional Field Offices. Officials and representatives from the DA-Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority (FPA) and the Fertilizer Industry Association of the Philippines (FIAP) also expressed their support to the DA initiatives. ### (Gumamela Celes Bejarin, DA-AFID)
