At least 1,625 farmers here have received fertilizer discount vouchers from the government with an exchange value of PHP4,000 each, the City Agriculture Office (CAO) said on Wednesday.

In an interview, CAO chief Shiela Nas said the fertilizer discount program with a budget of PHP3.347 million is part of the national rice program of the Department of Agriculture (DA) that aims to boost production and help improve the farmers’ standard of living.

Nas said her office pre-identified the farmers and submitted their names to the DA, which in turn qualified them to become beneficiaries of the program.

“The recipient farmers have exchanged their vouchers to BIOTECH Agri Supply and SUN Bigaa Poultry Supply, being the two accredited merchandisers here by the DA,” she said.

The recipient farmers, Nas said, are officially enrolled with the DA’s Registry System for the Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA), which is a list of farmers, fisherfolk and other farm laborers that serve as a mechanism for identifying beneficiaries of various agriculture-related programs and services of the government.

Nas said the city government of Legazpi will also allocate funding for fertilizers that would be distributed to those farmers who have not yet received the assistance from DA, “to make sure all of them will benefit from the government’s subsidized fertilizers for rice farming.”

Some 1,500 pre-identified farmers have yet to receive fertilizer assistance, she said. (PNA)