Annual Report 2011 - National Agricultural and Fishery Council ...

Young Farmers Program
The Young Farmers Program (YFP) aims to address aging farmers and fishers by encouraging
the youth, especially agriculture and fisheries graduates, to venture into agribusiness. This is
by enhancing their entrepreneurial skills and providing financial support for agri and fishery
projects of their choice.
This program provides a maximum financial support of P300,000.00 per young farmer/fisher,
where 50 per cent is the loan component from a financial institution, 40 per cent is the grant
component from NAFC and 10 per cent represents the equity from either the proponent or
LGU. Enlisted participants of the program undergo training on entrepreneurship, management
skills, values formation, and hands-on/on-the-job-training on their chosen enterprise to enable
them to attain greater success rate of their funded projects.
As of June 2011, nine (9) batches or a total of 286 young farmers have already been trained
under the program. Out of this number, 257 are Young Farmer Entrepreneurs (YFEs) and 29
are Young Farmer Volunteers (YFVs).
For 2011, NAFC disbursed grant funds totaling to PhP719, 450.00 to six (6) YFEs from Batch
9, all of whom are from Isabela, for their approved projects.
With the average age of Filipino farmers being pegged at 57 years old and the earnings of an
average Filipino farmer at about PhP23,000 a year, NAFC will continue to promote agriculture
and agribusiness among more Filipino youth, who are considered as the hope of society, and
generate more employment opportunities in the countryside through the YFP.
6. Monitoring and Evaluation
The agency disseminated 735 M & E reports which included, among others, the status of
activities under the AFMA Implementing Rules and Regulations; foreign-assisted projects
under the 2KR and US PL-480 Programs such as the Rehabilitation of Small Scale Irrigation
Projects for Upland Productivity and Resources Sustainability, Technology Management for
Competitive Agriculture and Fisheries Sectors, Livelihood Enhancement for Agricultural
Development (LEAD) and Support to Emergency and Livelihood Assistance Project (SELAP);
and DA-funded programs and projects.
7. IEC/Advocacy Materials Distributed
NAFC produced and distributed
IEC/advocacy materials. A total of
24,129 among the 16,144 targeted
materials were distributed to its
stakeholders.
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