Dinalupihan farmers receive PLEA loan from DA

DINALUPIHAN, Bataan – Thirty two farmers from different barangays of this first-class municipality were among the initial batch of farmers who received checks from the Production Loan Easy Access (PLEA) program of the Department of Agriculture (DA) yesterday.

Mayor Maria Angela S. Garcia yesterday led the distribution of checks worth P50,000 for each farmer/beneficiary in a simple ceremony held at the executive hall here.

The loan from PLEA has only 6% interest per annum and payable in two years. Dinalupihan Multi-Purpose Cooperative (DMPC) was chosen to be the conduit of the DA for the processing of payments and other related financial transactions.

The province of Bataan received P83 million from the said program. Ten million pesos was released initially for Dinalupihan.

Garcia added that the municipal agriculturist office is now processing the next batch of 100 farmers who applied for the PLEA.

At present, there are thirty three barangay farmers associations in this town with 850 members. Dinalupihan has almost 3,000 farmers. Garcia urged the chairmen of these groups to convince other farmers to be their members to avail more programs like this from the national government.

The loan program is the flagship lending program of the DA with a P50-billion allocation for next year’s budget, is expected to be fully implemented nationwide by 2018.

Apart from increasing agricultural productivity, the program also aims to reduce and eventually eliminate the dependency of farmers on government subsidies and dole outs and contribute to the administration’s target of reducing national poverty by the end of 2022.