By Charissa Luci-Atienza
The House Committee on Agrarian Reform has approved a bill granting full insurance coverage to all qualified beneficiaries of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) to make their agricultural losses “more bearable” in the event of natural disasters.
(MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO)
House Bill No. 1045, principally authored by Ilocos Sur Rep. Kristine Singson-Meehan, hurdled the panel chaired by Ifugao Rep. Solomon Chungalao.
Singson-Meehan said her bill aims to provide immediate financial assistance to affected agrarian reform beneficiaries in the event of natural calamities.
“Crop insurance ensures both food security and farmers’ income. It mitigates agricultural risks and addresses the consequences of natural disasters to make losses more bearable, especially to marginalized farmers,” she said.
She said despite the existence of the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC), only a small number of farmers avail of crop insurance because of the premium that they are required to pay.
“Although half of the premium is subsidized by the government, the remaining 50 percent is still a burden to many of our farmers,” Singson-Meehan pointed out.
Under the bill, full insurance coverage shall be provided to all qualified agrarian reform beneficiaries as defined in RA 10000, the
“Agri-Agra Law” and who are actually tilling the land and capitalizing on crops as certified by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR).
Benefitting from full crop insurance coverage are all farmer-beneficiaries whose compensable losses include those resulting from natural calamities such as typhoon, flood, drought, earthquake, volcanic eruption, frost, and other destructive natural phenomena such as heat and hot wind; and plant diseases caused by pathogens, bacteria, fungi, viruses, virus-like pathogens, and other similar foreign bodies.
The bill calls for the initial funding of P1 billion which shall be charged against the allocated funds by the General Appropriations Act to the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC) for the RSBSA.