‘Pablo’ affected small farmers in Davao Norte avail PCIC loan

Each of the small farmers in Davao del Norte enrolled with the Philippine Crops Insurance Corporation (PCIC) are entitled to P20,000 per hectare loan purposely for rehabilitation of rice lands and banana farms destroyed by typhoon Pablo.
PCIC is an attached agency of the Department of Agriculture (DA) that provides financial help to small farmers in times of calamities.
Romulo Tagalo, Davao del Norte assistant provincial administrator said at present, there are about 17 small farmers who applied to avail of the PCIC assistance. They can receive the amount as soon as their applications are approved by DA.
Tagalo said the Sangguniang Panlalawigan has approved the enrollment of up to 2,000 hectares of farmland with PCIC to ensure that the crops are covered in case of calamity such as the recent typhoon Pablo which destroyed billions of rice lands and banana farms in the three Davao provinces.
He said both the farmer/beneficiary and the province will pay back the amount at 6.7 percent premium rate annually or P670 per year.
The province will use the unspent calamity fund to pay the PCIC. Of the P61 million calamity fund of the province, P20 million was not used in 2011 and P41 million not spent in 2012, Tagalo said.
He said most of the 17 farmers who applied for PCIC are those with rice lands.
PCIC offers a variety of insurance coverage including rice crop insurance, corn crop insurance, high-value commercial crop insurance, non-crop agricultural asset insurance, livestock insurance, fisheries insurance and term insurance packages. [PNA]