The Department of Agriculture – Philippine Rural Development (DA-PRDP) North Luzon Cluster poses a positive trajectory of its overall project implementation across the four regions as the cluster accomplished and delivered some of its targets in the year’s first half.

This was revealed during the conduct of assessment activity from January 21-22 in Baguio City, which was participated by component and unit staff from the Project Support Office (PSO) and the four Regional Project Coordination Offices (RPCOs).

Deputy Project Director Elma Mananes commended all the components and units for their continued commitment to accomplishing their target deliverables and for proper coordination to ensure smooth and timely subproject implementation.

In terms of local planning, the cluster currently has thirty-three (33) approved value chain analyses that support twenty-seven (27) agri-fisheries commodities. Twenty-two (22) provinces and one (1) city have adopted commodity investment plans that cover 24 agri-fishery commodities. The top 5 commodities linked to PRDP subprojects are coffee, mango, aromatic/pigmented rice, onion, and dairy.

Physical Accomplishments

North Luzon Cluster set the record for being the first among the four clusters to have physically completed all its I-REAP subprojects under the Original Loan, with 330 SPs amounting to Php 693.54 million. Moreover, the cluster is also the first to have 2 completed enterprise subprojects worth Php 106.07M, out of 17 approved under the Second Additional Financing (AF2).

Under the I-BUILD Component, the cluster has also completed all 151 infrastructure SPs amounting to PhP 7.54 billion. These comprised 127 SPs (Php 5.29B) under the Original Loan and 25 (PhP 2.25B) under the First Additional Financing.

Meanwhile, out of the 25 infrastructure SPs under the (AF2) worth Php 2.90 billion, 24 are ongoing and 1 is under procurement.

Financial Accomplishments

In terms of financial accomplishment, for I-REAP Component, the cluster has almost completed the disbursement of funds against obligated for OL subprojects with a 99% accomplishment rate, while a 37% rate under the AF2.
Likewise, the cluster also achieved a 99% accomplishment rate in the disbursement of funds for both the OL and AF1 I-BUILD subprojects, while a 67% rate for AF2.

PRDP Scale-Up Preparation

Ongoing preparations are underway for the expanded version of the current Project, known as PRDP Scale-Up. In this new flagship, farmer cooperatives and associations (FCAs) and local government units (LGUs) are eligible proponents to implement subprojects funded by the PRDP.

For North Luzon, a total of 34 enterprise SPs worth Php2.6B have been identified or are now in the pipeline for PRDP Scale Up, out of which 9 (PhP635M) will be implemented by the FCA or FCA cluster and 25 (Php 1.9B) will be handled by LGUs.

Meanwhile, a total of 51 proposed infrastructure SPs amounting to Php 3.77M are now prioritized for Scale-Up, of which 29 are in the pipeline (0-3 clearances), 17 are in an advanced stage (4-8 clearances) and 5 are now ready for No Objection Letter (NOL) 1.

Implementing the PRDP Scale-Up aims to contribute to developing the agriculture sector by improving farmers’ and fisherfolk’s access to markets and increasing income from selected agri-fishery value chains. ### (Ericson Guiao, PSO NL InfoACE)