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The Department of Agriculture-Regional Field Unit 6 (DA-RFU 6) will hasten its implementation of the Farm Mechanization Program next year, disclosed regional executive director Larry P. Nacionales.

This region is allotted more than half a billion pesos for the program, making it one of the three regions slated to receive the biggest share in the Agriculture department’s budget next year. The other regions are Central Luzon and Cagayan Valley.

Nacionales said they might embark in advance procurement as already requests from various farmers group have been submitted to their office.

The regional director explained that the use of machines is found to reduce losses by more than five percent. This is against the 15-percent losses that farmers usually due to lack of appropriate farm machines.

The program also supports the move of the national government to stop its importation of rice by 2013 because the national demand could now be supported as a result of higher production.

The Farm Mechanization Program is implemented through a counterparting scheme where the government through the DA shoulders 85 percent of the acquisition cost of the machines while the recipients pay for the remaining 15 percent.

However, it is open only to organized sectors such as the irrigators associations or farmers cooperative. - pna

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