LandBank eyes at least 5,000 AgriSenso borrowers

The Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank) expects to provide loans to at least 5,000 farmers this year through its AgriSenso Program.

Crisso Pernito, LandBank’s officer-in-charge for programs management, told the Daily Tribune that the borrowers could receive an initial total amount of P500 million under LandBank’s new lending program.

Pernito said qualified AgriSenso borrowers are those who hve already availed of a previous LandBank lending program.

Agribusiness and cooperative components

“The difference in AgriSenso is we want to espouse cluster farming. If you will notice, AgriSenso already has agribusiness and cooperative components,” he said Friday at the LandBank’s 15th Digital Financial Inclusion Caravan in Tagaytay City, Cavite.

Pernito said AgriSenso was created in collaboration with multiple government agencies, namely the Department of Agriculture and its Agricultural Credit Policy Council, Department of Agrarian Reform, and National Irrigation Administration.

All these agencies promote cluster farming which are run by cooperatives and associations of farmers.

“One of the loan requirements to the borrowers is the endorsement from the National Irrigators Association that serves farmers who work on contiguous land,” Pernito said.

“That’s why in agriculture, the bigger the group of farmers, the more profitable and protected it becomes,” he noted.

‘The difference in AgriSenso is we want to espouse cluster farming. If you will notice, AgriSenso already has agribusiness and cooperative components.’

Re-lending option

Pernito added AgriSenso has a re-lending option that LandBank fulfills with the National Irrigators Association. The latter re-lends the bank’s funds to farmers in exchange of a certain amount of service fee.

In 2022, LandBank started conducting forums on AgriSenso where it shared the lending program’s interest rate of at least 2 percent.

Pernito said LandBank clients have yet to shift to AgriSenso to avail of its comprehensive financing that supports the entire supply value chain.

“We just started AgriSenso and applications are coming in. But we still don’t have a definite number of borrowers,” he said.

President Ferdinand Marco Jr., who had also formerly been agriculture chief said last year that officials have already identified 300 farm clusters and 900 cooperatives nationwide.

However, Pernito said AgriSenso still lends to individual borrowers under certain conditions which mainly include a good credit standing and a previous loan application with LandBank.