Bago City will have a mass enrolment for the Negros First Universal Crop Insurance Program with the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist today, with a target of 500 farmers.

In Negros Occidental, Bago is considered as the rice granary and farmers and their land areas have to be covered by NFUCIP to protect them from losses, Maria Lina Alayon, Agriculturist II, said yesterday.

Alayon said they also want to farmers belonging to the association of irrigators to be covered by the program in cooperation with the National Irrigation Administration.

She said they have already enrolled 157 farmers and they encourage small ones to apply for crop insurance to help recover from losses caused by natural calamities, infestations, and plant diseases.

Bago City has 11,000 hectares of land for rice production and its rice sufficiency level is at 246 percent, she also said. The average rice production from ‘good seeds’ is at 90 cavans per hectare and 110 cavans per hectare from ‘certified seeds’, she added.

NFUCIP offers maximum crop insurance of P17,680 per hectare, ATM cards from the Development Bank of the Philippines, life insurance of P10,000, forced savings, and project opportunities and technological trainings to its members, Dina Genzola, OPA senior agriculturist said.

Farmers also have free health care benefits through the Negros Occidental Comprehensive Health Program, Genzola added.*LTG

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