Agriculture Assistant Secretary Hansel Didulo has called for more active farming groups in the country.
“It was a bit surprising that many farmers and fisherfolk in the Visayas still expressed the need for better advocacy of their concerns in the grassroots,” Asec. Didulo noted during an exclusive interview today with HilwayNews.
Notwithstanding the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic ASec. Didulo has been regularly going the rounds in farming towns and coastal villages especially in Western Visayas.
A sustainable feedback mechanism between the national leadership and the locals has become a recurring concern both ways, ASec. Didulo observed.
He said that Agriculture Secretary William Dar has set a premium on productivity, where agricultural coops and associations have envigorated the country’s agri-fishery sector.
“In fact under the DA’s P10 billion Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) program, farmers’ cooperatives and associations (FCAs) were the main conduits of funding and projects,” ASec. Didulo said.
The RCEF program, now on its second year of implementation extends credit, farm mechanization, seeds, training and extension, among other components.*
