Bacolod City – The budget for implementation of RA 10659, or the Sugar Industry Development Act (SIDA), has been increased from P750 million to P1 billion this year, revealed Negros Occidental 5th District Rep. Emilio Bernadino Yulo recently.
Yulo, a former member of the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) board, however, admitted that it is not enough to answer all the basic needs of the sugar industry, even if its original budget of P2 billion, as mandated by law, was somehow restored.
The SIDA budget had been slashed several times, having been reduced from P2 billion all the way to P500 million annually, due to underspending.
RA 10659 was passed into law in 2015 to boost the production of sugarcane and sugar, as well as to increase the income of farmers, for which the law provides the annual allocation of P2 billion.
Of the P2B annual allocation, P1 billion was earmarked for infrastructure for farm to mill roads, P300 million for credit, P100 million for scholarships, P300 million for block farms of agrarian reform beneficiaries, and P300 million for shared facilities program.
Except for farm to mill roads and scholarship components, Yulo said the budget for socialized credits, farm mechanization, and block farming components have been underutilized.
The Negros solon cited “too stringent requirements” set by the Land Bank to creditors, a factor which is outside of the control of SRA.
Regarding the block farming component, Yulo stressed the need to attract agrarian reform beneficiaries into the program. (Gilbert Bayoran via The Visayan Daily Star (TVDS), photo courtesy of TVDS)