THE SENATE has passed on third and final reading a bill exempting small farmers from paying irrigation fees.
Senator Cynthia Villar, sponsor of Senate Bill No. 1465 also known as the “Free Irrigation Service to Small Farmers Act of 2017,” said in a statement issued by the chamber that “there is a need to make free irrigation a policy, and institutionalize it to make it more permanent.”
“Filipino farmers and fisherfolk are still among the poorest in the country and freeing farmers from the burden of paying irrigation service fees will significantly reduce production cost, hasten productivity and increase the income of farmers because farmers and fisherfolk comprise 40% of Filipinos below the poverty line,” Ms. Villar added.
According to the bill, all small farmers are “exempted from paying irrigation service fees for water derived from national irrigation systems and communal irrigation systems that were funded, constructed, maintained and administered by the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) and other government agencies.”
The threshold for the exemption is set at ownership of more than five hectares of land.
Corporate farms and plantations will continue to pay irrigation service fees.
The bill calls for “all unpaid irrigation service fees and the corresponding penalties of small farmers to NIA and all loans, past due accounts and the corresponding interests and penalties of irrigators associations to NIA” to be “condoned and written off from the books of NIA.”
