World Bank commits $500 million for agriculture projects

MANILA, Philippines — The World Bank has committed $500 million in assistance for the development of the local agriculture sector to cover more areas and projects in the country.

Agriculture Secretary William Dar said the department has received firm commitment from the international financial institution to finance several projects.

The proposed projects include the $200-million provincial agricultural and fishery extension delivery system, $200-million coastal resilience and fisheries development project, and $100-million Mindanao inclusive agriculture development project.

The first project is a new proposal, while the last two are being evaluated by the World Bank.

“Within our first 100 days in office, we received the World Bank’s nod to bankroll several projects that highlight our ‘new thinking’ for agriculture,” Dar said.

Dar recently met and discussed the projects with World Bank officials led by country director Mara Warwick, operations manager Achim Fock, sustainable development program leader Madhu Raghunath, and lead rural development specialist Carolina Figueroa-Geron.

The World Bank is among the first international financial organizations that offered support to Dar, upon assumption of his post three months ago.

Further, the DA has proposed to update and enhance the registry system for basic sectors in agriculture (RSBSA) that will contain, among other information, a reliable list of legitimate farmers and fishers nationwide.

“With an updated RSBSA, we will be able to focus the delivery of needed services and initiatives to our clienteles most especially small farmers and fisherfolk more effectively and efficiently,” Dar said.

“We will strive to make all our agricultural, fishery and agribusiness projects inclusive, market-oriented and sustainable,” he said.

The DA will also ask the World Bank to provide technical assistance on critical policy matters such as crafting a rice value chain industry roadmap.

“The proposed projects are on top of the extension of the current World Bank-funded Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) worth $280 million,” Dar said.

The PRDP has been cited by World Bank as one of the most outstanding programs implemented that is worth replicating by other nations.

So far, PRDP received a total of $760 million in funding from the World Bank since it began in 2013 as a farm-to-market road initiative and was eventually added with several livelihood components to ensure stakeholders participation.

The PRDP, which was jumpstarted by former agriculture secretary Proceso Alcala, is known to have revolutionized ways of doing business in and with the DA, introducing innovations in enhancing transparency, accountability and participation mechanisms.

It was designed to establish the government platform for a modern, climate-smart, and market-oriented agri-fishery sector, focusing on expanding market access and improving competitiveness while introducing reforms in the internal operations of the DA.

The program aimed to increase annual real household incomes of farmer beneficiaries, annual marketed output and the number of farmers with improved access to DA services.