UCPB-CIIF Finance finances livelihood programs of the coconut farmers last year

UCPB-CIIF Finance and Development Corp. offers credit livelihood projects that helps the farmers to generate extra earnings aside from their income with P602 million released new loans to 10,499 farmers in 30 coconut provinces during 2017.

UCPB-CIIF Finance President Edgardo Amistad said that most of the farmers are most likely earned enough from their livelihood projects with 94-percent collection rate to repay for their loans.

The funds from their loan were used to venture to short-gestation ones that provides quick returns such as cash crop cultivation, livestock raising, commodities trading and village-based processing of coconut by-products like coconut sugar.

Amistad added that the livelihood programs is effective in uplifting the lives of the farmers as they engage in any alternative livelihood activities.

Coconut farmers are one of the lowest-income workers in the agriculture sector yielding average earnings from P15,000 to P40,000 per hectare per year only and with factors of small size, remote location and the higher risks of microenterprises, they have difficulty accessing credit from banks and any other sources.

Also, the UCPB-CIIF Foundation, a sister-company, is helping families of the coconut farmers through scholarship programs and seven in every ten children that are already graduated are earning enough to for the household expenses.