Digital agri dept to ease farm input delays

MANILA -The Department of Agriculture (DA) is digitalizing its existing systems to avoid the usual delays in providing farm inputs such as fertilizers to local producers.

Starting this coming dry season planting, the DA will pilot the digital system in its 15 regional field offices (RFOs) nationwide to deviate from the traditional bulk procurement and, in turn, “the fertilizer scams of years past will be removed in the system,” Agriculture Undersecretary Leocadio Sebastian said in a statement.

This digital system would enable clustered farmers to choose their own fertilizers and seeds in bulk from merchants selling their desired seeds and biofertilizer, organic or chemical fertilizers and microbial inoculants for the soil.

Sebastian said this digital process “empowers farmers to choose their own stocks of inputs and seeds and the merchants that offer them the best quality of goods and best price.”

The DA said through this system, clustered farmers would now enjoy nearly real-time payouts instead of the usual 90 days for the procurement and distribution of seeds, fertilizers and other farm inputs, ensuring a seamless transaction.

The process would also make the traceability of transactions easier, resulting in a more transparent system.

“Vouchers would be issued to clustered farmers to avail themselves of input assistance from the DA, which they could buy from their choice of inputs and merchants at their own time and convenience,” Sebastian said.

“This drastically departs from previous practice where farmers just had to accept whatever the DA RFOs supply them, which some of them do not find useful for their farms,” added said.