P3 billion machines under RCEF readied

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture is preparing to release P3 billion worth of farm machines under the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) which aims to make Filipino rice farmers competitive.

DA-attached agency Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization (PhilMech) said it is now in the process of bidding and acquiring another batch of farm machines worth P3 billion.

Under the Rice Tariffication Law, PhilMech has been allocated P5 billion annually, from 2019 to 2024, to fund the grant of farm machines to qualified farmers cooperatives and associations (FCAs) nationwide.

“The bidding for various farm machines worth P3 billion started on Sept. 19 by making available the bid documents that were followed by pre-bidding, evaluation of bids and awarding of bids. The awarding of bids will be done in December this year,” PhilMech executive director Baldwin Jallorina said.

“This means PhilMech will still be very busy in distributing farm machines even if 2021 will still have varying degrees of lockdowns and quarantines due to the coronavirus disease,” he said.

Like in the previous batches, PhilMech assured that it would conduct the bidding and acquisition in the most transparent manner, with the process from pre-bidding to awarding of bids to be done virtually.