Nearly 2,000 rice farmers in Northern Samar have received cash aid from the central government under the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund – Rice Farmers Financial Assistance (RCEF-RFFA), the Department of Agriculture (DA) reported on Tuesday.

The 1,955 rice farmers who received the cash aid on February 25 were from the towns of Bobon, Catarman, Mondragon, Pambujan, and San Roque in Northern Samar.

Each of them received the PHP5,000 cash assistance, Rodel Macapañas, assistant chief of the DA’s regional planning, monitoring, and evaluation division said in a phone interview.

Northern Samar is the last province to receive the grant under the RCEF-RFFA under the first batch of releases in Eastern Visayas, according to Macapañas.

“This is just an initial roll-out and we will release more funds to other farmers in the region. We don’t set conditions on how they would spend the money. The objective is to unburden our rice farmers from present economic challenges,” he told the Philippine News Agency (PNA).

The program’s target is to complete the release of cash aid to 58,684 rice farmers in the region within the first six months of the year.

The disbursement began in November last year.

Under the RCEF-RFFA, PHP5,000 is provided to small rice farmers who cultivate land not exceeding two hectares.

A beneficiary should be registered in the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture.

The amount is being sourced out from the accumulated excess tariff in 2019 and 2020 under the Rice Tariffication Law amounting to PHP7.6 billion.

The tariff automatically appropriates PHP5 billion for the provision of farm machinery and equipment, PHP3 billion for certified inbred seeds, PHP1 billion for credit, and PHP1 billion for training and extension, or a total of PHP10 billion.

The Rice Tariffication Law approved in February 2019 removed quantitative restrictions on rice imports and replaced them with a 35 percent import tariff. (PNA)