PIA Press Release
Monday, January 16, 2012

106 Ifugao farmhouseholds benefit from AKBay Pinoy program

LAGAWE, Ifugao,Jan. 16 (PIA)-— One hundred six (106) farm households in eight municipalities here benefitted from the Agrikultura: Kaagapay sa Bayang Pinoy (AKBay) Program of the National Agriculture and Fishery Council (NAFC) in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture.

Avelino Lunag, Provincial AKBay Coordinator, said that the program is a social intervention program designed to assist the poorest of the poor sector of agriculture and fishery farm households in the 4th, 5th and 6th class municipalities in the 31 identified provinces in Luzon and Visayas.

Ifugao province was identified as one of the Priority Three Provinces under the 2006 Reports of the Accelerated Hunger Mitigation Program to qualify to the AKBay Program. It seeks to assist the government in reducing poverty in the province, provide livelihood opportunities, enhance employment generation; provide additional source of income; strengthen capabilities of marginalized sector and facilitate participation of marginalized sector in decision making.

The program started July 2011 with program duration of three years. Qualified farm households each receives a maximum of P10,000.00 loan or P1,060,000.00 for the 106 farmer beneficiaries, which is interest and collateral free and to be repayed on the nature and cash flow of micro income generating project selected and implemented.

The number of farm households per municipality are: Asipulo-20 households with a total amount of P200,000.00; Banaue-17-P170,000; Kiangan-13-P130,000.00; Hingyon-13-P130,000; Hungduan-12-P120,000.00; Lagawe-13-P120,000; Lamut-10-P100,000.00; Mayoyao-8-P80,000.00.

Qualified projects which are funded are short-gestating micro-livelihood agriculture and fishery based projects and the qualifications of the farm households are as follows: family income is below the official poverty threshold in the province; no access to formal credit sources and three years residency of farmer/fisher folk.

The equity of farmer/fisherfolk may be in the form of land, labor cost; available facilities, utilities and indigenous materials.

The program is jointly funded by the government of Japan under its official development assistance fund and the government of the Philippines thru the NAFC. (JDP/VDB- PIA CAR, Ifugao)