DELAYED PAYMENT
Unpaid seed growers seek governor's help

By Erly C. Garcia

Farmers in the region may find themselves with nothing to plant for the next cropping if negotiations between seed growers and local agriculture officials fail.

Seed growers in the region have threatened not to supply the Department Agriculture (DA) with certified seeds if the latter would not still pay its obligation to them amounting to P5 million.

Rodulfo Toreda, president of the West Visayas Federation of Seed Producers Cooperative (WVFSPC), said they were not yet paid by the DA for the more than 10,000 bags of certified seeds they have supplied to farmers last year.

WVFSPC supplies certified seeds to farmers all over the region through the DA as part of the government's certified seeds program. The farmers pay half of the amount of the certified seeds while the DA pays for the other half.

Last Tuesday, Toreda and his group went to Gov. Niel D. Tupas, Sr. to seek help in order to speed up the payment of their claims.

Toreda said the DA's failure to pay them on time has affected their operation since the money could have been used by them to produce more seeds for the next cropping.

He said if the DA continues to ignore their concern they would be forced not to supply them with the needed certified seeds in the future.

Last year the federation supplied 5,259 bags of certified seeds to Iloilo farmers.

WVFSPC vice chair Jun Provido said they are regularly selling the certified seeds at P750/bag but they are selling it for only P650 with the government as their way of helping in the government's program.

Provido wondered why the DA always delays in paying them when there is a regular budget allocation for the procurement of certified seeds.

“All we want is for DA regional director Ricardo Oblena to speed up the payment of their obligation to us because we have already done our commitment,” Provido said.

Toreda added, “we believe there is a need for the DA to improve their system of procurement and to cut off the bureacracy in order to end this problem.”

Meanwhile, Tupas admits there is really a need to resolve the problem between the seed growers and the DA.

The governor said if this problem could not be immediately resolved the region's food security would be in danger.

He thus called on Oblena to fast track the processing of payment to the seed growers.

Meanwhile, Oblena in a phone interview with The News Today said the problem with the seed growers was already resolved.

He said they are now readying all the requirements so that seed growers could already be paid.

Oblena explained that the delay in payment was due to some technicalities.

He, however, said that he would be meeting with the seed growers this coming June 22 in order to discuss things on how to improve their procurement system.