TACLOBAN CITY — The National Irrigation Administration (NIA) in Eastern Visayas has extended P1.2 million in livelihood assistance to an irrigators’ federation in Ormoc City to help expand its rice trading business and generate additional income for its members.
The assistance was granted to the LACASNA, KASANAG, KASSAMAVA, SJSB, MARLIS, OSDI (LAKKASMO) Irrigators Federation of Agriculture Cooperative (FiCo) under NIA’s Irrigation Management Transfer Support Services (IMTSS).
NIA-8 Institutional Development Section chief Karen Mades said the program is part of the agency’s effort to help irrigators’ associations become more entrepreneurial by providing capital for viable livelihood projects.
“Apart from providing water and irrigation facilities to irrigators’ associations, one of the thrusts and directives of our new irrigation administrator, Eduardo Guillen, is to find initiatives to make our irrigators’ associations enterprising and help them have capital for livelihood through the IMTSS,” Mades said.
The assistance is expected to benefit 2,259 members of the federation, whose rice farms have a combined area of 2,482 hectares.
The LAKKASMO FiCo recently secured a contract with the Ormoc City government under the Sagip Saka Act to supply 37,311 sacks of rice, each weighing 10 kilograms, at P500 per sack.
The contract is valued at about P18.6 million.
Mades said the federation submitted a feasibility study for the proposed rice trading project, which NIA validated through an onsite assessment to determine its viability and potential benefits to the irrigators and the community.
She said NIA will continue to monitor the use of the livelihood assistance to ensure that the funds are properly utilized and that the project remains viable.
“The livelihood assistance before was solely for training, but now we have ventured into another initiative, which is the livelihood program. We assess the projects and continue our monitoring,” Mades said.
Since February this year, NIA-8 has provided more than P13 million in livelihood assistance to various irrigators’ organizations across Eastern Visayas.
The assistance has supported a range of livelihood projects, including agricultural lending, farm-input retail stores, free-range chicken and organic egg production, goat raising, small farm machinery services, microfinancing, virgin coconut oil and other coconut-based products, agricultural input merchandising, agrivet supplies, rice retailing, frozen goods, micro-savings, hog raising and lending programs.
(ROEL T. AMAZONA)
