Skip to main content

8 Credit Programs Of ACPC Show Filipino Farmers Are Bankable!

Above is the front cover of a coffee-table book published by the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) titled The Filipino Farmer Is Bankable. The inset logos show that the ACPC is an attached agency of the Department of Agriculture (DA). The inset text says:

With credit, the ACPC looks forward to the day millions of poor farmers and fishers, along with their households, have become as resilient as the bamboo, that is, pliant, sturdy, resistant to stress, can withstand harsh weather, and thrives even on infertile grounds.

Yes, the ACPC now knows our farmers are “Bankable!” – given the ACPC’s financial assistance andsupervision to individuals and groups. That is the lesson I personally learned in my field trips and subsequently singlehandedly digitally producing the above ACPC coffee-table book subtitled Celebrating 25 Years Of The ACPC. (I myself celebrated when that book came out.)

Late January in 2012, Executive Director of the ACPC Jovita Corpuz, from out of the blue picked me to produce a coffee-table book to celebrate the Silver Anniversary of ACPC on the coming 25 April, about 3 months away. Gathering her staff, she asked me pointblank, “Can you do it?” I said, “Yes Ma’am!”

(I did, a self-taught Digital One-Man Band: writing, editing, taking photographs, layouting, and desktop publishing – digital results 144 pages. 500 copies printed.)

For necessary photographs, with Allen Ducusin, an ACPC senior staff, I personally visited several projects showing success with the assistance of the ACPC, from Ilocos Norte to Nueva Ecija to Bulacan to Dumaguete City (travelled by car to near Mt Canlaon, 150 km away).

Some projects I took photographs of in place: “ACPC-Tobacco-Rice Contract Growing System” in Ilocos Sur; “Cooperative Bank Agri Lending Program” in Pamplona; “Oil-fired Palay Drier” in Villaverde, Nueva Vizcaya; “ACPC Agri-Microfinance Program” in Binangonan, Rizal – the ACPC helping small borrowers manage the risks of their enterprise. I bought a new Lumix FZ100 superzoom all-digital camera for this project. As a result of that photographic journey, all book pages had images in full color, half of the shots mine.

In summary: Under supervision of the DA, the ACPC is in charge of the Agro-Industry Modernization Credit & Financing Program (AMCFP), which is the umbrella of 8 programs (alphabetically listed):

1, Agri Microfinance Program
2, Cooperative Agri Lending Program
3, Cooperative Banks Agri Lending Program
4, Direct Market Linkage Development Program
5, Rural Household Business Financing
6, Sikat-Saka Program
7, Special Agricultural Financing Window
8, Upland Southern Mindanao Credit And Institution Building Program.

The AMCFP partners of the ACPC are the LandBank, which addresses financial requirements in agriculture; DBP, which addresses funding needs of businesses and economic sectors; and People’s Credit & Finance Corp, which addresses microcredit needs of disadvantaged people.

A good baseball team, the ACPC has all the bases covered!@517

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Secretary William Dar Dreams Of A PH Database On Agriculture, ADING – Perfect Match For OpAPA!

On 27 January 2021, the press release came out from the Department of Agriculture (DA) titled “DA Taps State Schools For Food Security Policy Research Projects [1] , ” data-gathering efforts commonly aiming at creating a regional database for agricultural and rural development, urgently for national food security. The collaboration is another initiative of the DA under its Agriculture Dialogue and Information Network Groups (ADING) Program “that aims to further strengthen and improve public trust and confidence in the Department.” Note: “Ading” in Ilocano means “younger sibling.” Now, not only the aim but the name is perfect – I am thinking of the 17-year old proposal of Mr Dar himself that he called “ Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture” (OpAPA), which he advocated in 2003 when he was still Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) – with ADING and OpAPA 2021, we have a family of science knowledge banks with Mr Dar as fathe
Post a Comment
Read more

Historical PH 1st Holy Mass: Mazaua Or Limasawa? Fr Amalla Vs Maria Serena Diokno Vs Ambeth Ocampo – And The Priest Is Right!

We Filipinos celebrate 500 years of Christianity today Wednesday, 31 March 2021, Christianity brought to pagans by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailing the seas for Spain. The historical question is: Where was the first Holy Mass celebrated: “Limasawa” (in Leyte) or “Mazaua” (in Butuan)? Catholic priest Fr Joesilo C Amalla has just published the book (above), An Island They Called Mazaua, that argues the island of “Mazaua” in Butuan is the “true site of first Holy Mass in the Philippines [1] ”  and not “Limasawa” in Leyte (ANN, 07 January 2021, Manila Times ). The declaration and discussion are made by Butuan-based Fr Amalla in his 644-page book. Among other things, he writes: The truth is that the prevailing state- and church-affirmation and multiple reaffirmations of the island of Limasawa as the site of that first Holy Mass have no factual, historical and geographic (bases) whatsoever nor any shred of evidentiary support from cartographic studies, navigational informat
Post a Comment
Read more

UPLB, Where Has All Your Extension Gone? Gone To Flowers Everyone! When Will They Ever Learn?

What do you mean “Extension”? Here is “Dean Umali’s Rule” as his colleagues remember it [1] : “When a farmer visits your office, stop everything you are doing and give him his due attention, for he is the primary commitment of your being in this institution.” What is known as “UPCA’s Golden Age of Extension” is 1959 to 1969, when Dioscoro L Umali was Dean of UPCA – that is according to Louise Sigrid Antonio et al writing 25 May 2014, “Dioscoro L Umali,” in their blog The Heat Ray Of Archimedes ). I was Freshman at UPCA when he became Dean in 1959; later, I remember UPCA agronomists really busy with national extension projects involving rice and corn. (top image [2]  from Philippine Science Heritage Center, Facebook ) On 20 November 1972, through Presidential Decree 58, the UP System was created, with UPLB as one of the universities in the system. Unfortunately, while the college UPCA grew into the university UP Los Baños, the Extension function grew out of the university until
Post a Comment
Read more