DA’s Anti Poverty Aid Gaining Headway

The Department of Agriculture’s poverty alleviation program has gaining headway as it benefited more than a half of its covered towns across the island regions. After eight months of project implementation, the Mindanao Rural Development Program (MRDP) had already served 146 out of 225 covered towns.
MRDP is an $83 million anti poverty program of the government funded through an adaptable program loan from the World Bank plus the funding from the national and local government units (LGUs). The program aims to establish agricultural infrastructure like farm-to-market roads, irrigation, potable water system and post harvest facilities to improve income of smaller farmers and to ensure food security.
Although the gains are at various levels, results of investments have been showing of a surely promising development. According to Arnel V. De Mesa, Deputy Director, some have completed the projects, other projects are nearing completion, others are at procurement level and some more are waiting for notices to proceed. It was reported that of the P1.2 billion on the pipeline for infrastructure projects under the Rural Infrastructure (RI) component, P25 million has been completed. Some on-going projects are on its 70-85 percent completion. On the other hand, over P47 million has been completed out of the P127 million worth of livelihood projects allocated for the Community Fund for Agricultural Development (CFAD) while close to P22 million are on-going projects and the remaining amount is on the procurement process.
Meanwhile, beneficiaries from Polomolok, South Cotabato lauded the said poverty alleviation project as it brought substantial development and new opportunities for the local government units and the people. The farm-to-market roads and bridge constructed in their respective areas has reduced transport costs of their produce as it increases their earnings.
Other covered towns are yet to benefit from the program as they are on the process of completing the paper requisite while others are still preparing for their financial counterpart. The program applies 50:50 cost-sharing scheme for its RI component and P500 thousand for the CFAD component.