LEGAZPI CITY --- By stirring up the rural economy and spurring agricultural production with a P44-billion fund infusion in the countryside, the government seeks to find refuge from the international recession.

        This, according to Albay Gov. Jose Ma. Sarte Salceda, financial adviser of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

        Salceda, who was a former research head of a Swiss bank, said this “would be the biggest intervention of the government in response to the global economic crisis.”

        He said the government’s stimulus in the countryside will be much bigger if the reinvigorated reforestation program pushes through with a P5-billion initiative next year to shield the country from global warming.

        Salceda said all these initiatives are intended to create wealth and purchasing power in the countryside with assistance to the farmers and to produce cheap and abundant food for all once the effects of the world-wide financial meltdown start to set in after the first quarter of 2009.

        Based on the 2009 proposed national budget, the Department of Agriculture has been allotted with P45 billion and the National Food Authority has a contingency provision for a P32-billion yearly loss, which increases the loss coverage from P8 billion with additional P24 billion.

        Salceda said the incremental loss provision of P24 billion will go to farmers’ assistance with P8.5 billion and to consumers’ subsidy (for the poor) with P14.5 billion.

        He said there will be more aggressive palay procurement next year, of which P17 billion is set aside to buy palay at P17 a kilo.

        Salceda said P20 billion of the 2009 agriculture department’s budget is for subsidy to food producers, of which P10 billion is for the so-called FIELDS program, which involves more infrastructure in irrigation, storage, and farm-to-market roads, among other things. With report from MSArguelles PIA, Albay