After receiving the No Objection Letter 1 (NOL 1), farmer beneficiaries are required to prepare an operations manual for their respective Small Livelihood Project (SLP) proposals under the Philippine Rural Development Project’s enterprise component.

Forty-seven farmer organizations were issued a NOL 1 in 2016 under the PRDP-SLP in Ilocos Region. The PRDP-SLPs award either farm machinery (i.e. four-wheel tractor with rotavator, cage roller, and trailer or power trailer) or production support inputs. It is the Project’s answer to the losses incurred by farmers when Typhoon Lando struck Luzon in October 2015.

The farmer beneficiaries discussed in detail the sustainability of their SLP proposals in the operations manual: on how the machineries will be managed and maintained or how the support inputs will revolve at every planting season. Farmer beneficiaries’ incomes are expected to increase by 30 percent at the end of the Project’s sixth year.

Ms. Miraflor Mavroukakis of Pangasinan Women Development guided the farmer beneficiaries in drafting the manual. She asked the farmer beneficiaries to assess their organization’s leadership, management and governance, marketing, accounting and internal control, resource mobilization, capital build-up, and product development.

Ms. Mavroukakis reminded the farmers that the operations manual shall serve as basis of further interventions by the government as the manual will reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the organizations.

The meeting held at Hotel Trish, Mangaldan, Pangasinan is the last leg of the preparation of the SLPs’ operations manuals. It started on the first week of March 2017 at PhilRice, Batac, Ilocos Norte.

All SLP proposals of the farmers are expected to be awarded before the start of the wet or planting season. (Dessa U. Estrada and Vida V. Cacal, DA-PRDP RPCO1 InfoACE)