DA to set up national rural development program

The Department of Agriculture (DA) is pushing for a nationwide version of the poverty-reduction initiative Mindanao Rural Development Program (MRDP).   The planned Philippine Rural Development Program (PRDP) will “[aim] to increase the agricultural and fishery productivity and incomes of small farmers and fisherfolk through the establishment of needed infrastructure that include farm-to-market roads, bridges, communal irrigation systems, and potable water systems, among other rural infrastructure,” the DA noted in its press release yesterday.   The DA is targeting to start the program August 2013 and will run until 2019.   The PRDP will be funded through a $500-M loan from the World Bank, as well as $120 million from government and local government units and a $7 million grant from international funder Global Environmental Facility.   “We will apply in PRDP everything that was good about the MRDP, and will fill in the inadequacies of the MRDP,” Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala said yesterday in a statement.   For MRDP director Lealyn Ramos, the PRDP – which she called an “upscale” version of the MRDP – will also focus on providing enterprises to beneficiaries.   Ramos told GMA News Online said the PRDP will be a “value-added chain” program, which will provide indigent beneficiaries like farmers with enterprises to sell their products.   “Hindi lang ang farmers yung plant lang ng plant and somebody else will market their product. They will develop their enterprises so they themselves will reap profits from their [product],” she said in a phone interview.   Ramos noted that upon its implementation next year, the PRDP will serve as an “umbrella program” for the MRDP.   The MRDP director said that the provincial level will head the national program, unlike the Mindanao program which is led at the municipal level.   The national poverty reduction program will initially cover Regions IV-A, IV-B, V, VI, VII and VIII, and all provinces under the Mindanao-based program. - BM, GMA News