To ensure unhampered food production, the Department of Agriculture – Regional Field Office 10 (DA-RFO 10) orients agri-fishery suppliers on the financial grant assistance under the enhanced “Kadiwa ni Ani at Kita Inclusive Food Supply Chain”.

DA-RFO 10 Regional Technical Director for Operations Carlota S. Madriaga said, the program aims to capacitate farmers and fisherfolk cooperatives and associations, including community-based organizations by granting them financial assistance to upscale the Kadiwa ni Ani at Kita operations.

The Kadiwa project is part of DA’s efforts in ensuring affordable and available food for all by directly linking suppliers to consumers, bringing their produce in communities, in time for the implementation of the community quarantine due to COVID-19.

Further, participants were introduced to two DA’s information systems, the Kadiwa Agribiz Portal and the Farmers and Fisherfolk Enterprise Development Information System (FFEDIS).

The Kadiwa Agribiz Portal is an online information system where consumers and suppliers may interact for business engagements.

Meanwhile, the FFEDIS, under the Sagip Saka Act, is a registry system that seeks to create a database of registered/accredited farmers and fisherfolk.

As provided in the Memorandum Circular 16, series 2020 of DA, the financial assistance may be accessed in three forms.

Type “A” Grant, the beneficiary may receive P200,000 up to P1 million to finance value-adding activities as assemblers of farmers’ produce such as procurement of produce aggregation and pre-processing (cleaning, sorting, packing, drying, etc.).

Type “B” Grant, the beneficiary may receive P500,000 up to P5 million to finance value-adding activities as consolidators and distributors of farmers’ produce to consumer markets such as assembly, storage, transport, delivery of produce/products to distribution centers or buyers.

Meanwhile, Type “C” Grant, the beneficiary may receive P50,000 up to P150,000 to finance the start-up cost requirement of operating and maintaining Kadiwa retail markets (palengke) or retail stores.

Since the Kadiwa ni Ani at Kita program rolled out in Region 10 on March 30, 2020, there has been a total of 66 assisted agri-fishery suppliers.

To date, the program has generated a total sales of P12.7 million and has served 49,414 households. # (AMBManto, DA-10)