Establishment of farm schools in each town pushed

TANAUAN, Leyte, April 5 (PNA) -– Senator Cynthia Villar is pushing for the establishment of farm schools in every town in the bid to fully utilize scholarship grants for agricultural studies in the country.

Villar noted that the PHP500 million Agriculture Enhancement Fund (Acef) earmarked last year for scholars have not been fully used due to lack of interested student, lack of teachers, and absence of farm schools.

“We want to have farm school in every town so it’s closer to farming communities. Even if there is scholarship, children of poor families have no budget for fare from their village to the city. If there are more schools and teachers, we will be able to encourage more students to study farming,” said
Villar, the chair of the Senate committee on agriculture and food.

With more farm-related courses graduate, it will create more livelihood opportunities in rural communities, hence decongesting big cities

The senator was in Leyte on Monday as commencement speaker of satellite campuses of the Eastern Visayas State University in Burauen and Tanauan towns. During her meeting with school officials, she urged them to promote farming courses among students.

In 2015, only 12,000 students availed of Acef scholarship out of 45,000 target enrolees of farm-related courses.

“If we will be able to utilize 500 million, we will get PHP1 billion next year, but I am not keen on asking more funds since we could not even use all the existing allocation,” Villar added.

On top of Acef, the national government has also earmarked PHP200 million for scholarship of children of sugar farmers.

Acef, put up in 1996 after the Philippines joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), was created as a safety net for farmers and fishermen affected by the trade liberalization policies of the government.

Under Republic Act No. 8178, or the Agricultural Tariffication Act, which established Acef, the fund’s entire proceeds should be earmarked by Congress for irrigation, farm-to-market roads, postharvest facilities, credit, research and development, retraining, extension services and marketing infrastructure for the agriculture sector.

About 10 percent of Acef budget is intended for full scholarship of children of farmers taking agri-related courses. (PNA)
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