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| PCAF Exec. Dir. Ariel Cayanan, alongside SRA Board Member Atty. Jesus Barrera, welcomes the participants of the National Consultation on the draft IRR of the Sugarcane Industry Development Act of 2015. |
Stakeholders from private sector institutions and partners from concerned civil society organizations voiced their support for the newly enacted Sugarcane Industry Development Act of 2015, or Republic Act No. 10659, and offered recommendations for the refinement of its Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) during a national consultation held on June 8.
Organized by the Sugarcane Regulatory Administration (SRA) and the Philippine Council for Agriculture and Fisheries (PCAF), the national consultation comes on the heels of the area-wide public consultations spearheaded by the SRA for industry stakeholders and government officials at the local levels.
“With this new law, the sugarcane industry is provided with the enabling environment to truly be strategically diversified. Through this Act, we can look forward to a more competitive sugarcane industry, well-utilized sugarcane resources, and improved income for farmers and farm workers,” PCAF Executive Director Ariel Cayanan said in his message.
SRA officials, led by Board Member (Miller) Atty. Jesus Barrera, facilitated the review of the draft IRR at the consultation and welcomed the recommendations of the participants.
Some of the recommendations include increasing block farm areas to 50 hectares to increase efficiency, providing farmers life insurance or other social protection schemes, collaborating with higher education institutions on farm management initiatives, and conducting training programs for block farm managers.
The participants also stressed that stakeholder representation should be ensured in the Sugarcane Industry Development Council which will serve as consultative body on the identification and prioritization of specific programs and projects.
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| Stakeholders and partners review the salient features of the Sugarcane Industry Development Act of 2015. |
They also said that, aside from ensuring productivity and profitability, the Act should also be able to address poverty and welfare of farmers especially those with lands pawned and leased, help eradicate child labor, and include underprivileged students from families that are dependent on sugarcane farming.
The participants also suggested the popularization of the law as they believe that, through the Sugarcane Act, the Philippine sugarcane industry can not only increase productivity and efficiency but also make the industry socially and environmentally responsible. They said that this could be a big advantage for the country in today’s highly competitive regional market.
The Sugarcane Industry Development Act of 2015 is aimed at promoting the competitiveness of the sugarcane industry, maximizing the utilization of sugarcane resources, and improving the incomes of farmers and farm workers through improved productivity, product diversification, job generation, and increased efficiency of sugar mills.
Institutionalized in the Act are key programs such as Productivity Improvement Programs which comprise block farms, farm support and farm mechanization.
Through the Block Farm Program, the Sugarcane Act will provide assistance to small farmers with farm sizes of less than five hectares who make up about 80 percent of all sugarcane farmers in the country.
Under this program, small farms, including farms of agrarian reform beneficiaries, will be consolidated as one larger farm with a minimum area of 30 hectares within a two-kilometer radius. This is to take advantage of the economies of scale in the production of sugarcane.
The SRA, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Agrarian Reform, and other concerned government agencies will provide common service facilities, such as farm machineries, and implement grants or start-up funding for the needed production inputs, technology adoption, livelihood and skills training and other development activities for the block farm and its members.
For other farms that are not eligible for the Block Farm Program, the law provides for the Farm Support Program which includes, among others, the provision of socialized credit, farm management, technical assistance, and professional services.
Other key programs that will be implemented under the law are Infrastructure Support Programs, namely transport infrastructure, farm-to-mill roads, and irrigation; Research, Development and Extension which include breeding of high-yielding varieties, latest technologies and Good Agricultural Practices; and Human Resource Development Programs such as capacity-building of farmers and industry technical experts.
Starting 2016, the sugarcane industry will be annually provided with an initial aggregate amount of P2 billion which will be used on providing grants to block farms under the Block Farm Program (15%), socialized credit under the Farm Support and Farm Mechanization Programs (15%); research and development, capability-building and technology transfer activities (15%); scholarship grants (5%); and infrastructure support programs (50%).
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