INSTEAD of helping returning overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) establish sari-sari stores, the Philippine government should encourage workers to go into rice production to ease the impact of the impending grain shortage.

Jackson Gan, which heads an association of recruitment agencies, said the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) should redirect its reintegration program for returning Filipino workers.

Gan, vice president of the Federated Association of Manpower Exporters, noted that the Dole’s National Reintegration Center for OFWs (NRCO) could tap the help of the agriculture department in setting up rice-farming seminars for retired OFWs who opt to settle in the provinces.

The NRCO is currently involved in providing returning migrants technical assistance for self-employment or entrepreneurship, access to credit/microfinance, counseling on business or savings-mobilization schemes, and psychosocial counseling.

According to Gan, also the president of the Philippine Coconut Exporters Association, acting Labor Secretary Marianito Roque could request the national government to tap into the P1.5-billion fund released by Malacañang allotted for OFWs intending to venture into rice production.

President Arroyo has recently approved an additional P1.5-billion fund for the Department of Agriculture (DA) to mitigate the shortage in rice supply that has reached a critical stage in the face of price increases in Thailand and Vietnam, the first- and second-largest exporters of the staple.

The additional DA budget will be used to plant an additional 600,000 hectares of rice during the rainy season in the Philippines’ top 10 poorest provinces. Another 500,000 hectares will be used in other rural areas.

Earlier, the DA disclosed that the country’s rice reserve is expected to last for less than two months as world prices increase to 25 percent more compared with last month. The Philippines, the world’s largest rice importer, consumes a total of 11.9 million metric tons of rice annually.

THE Department of Agriculture (DA), through its attached agency, the National Food Authority (NFA), is encouraging the public to eat brown rice.

INSTEAD of helping returning overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) establish sari-sari stores, the Philippine government should encourage workers to go into rice production to ease the impact of the impending grain shortage.

HIGH oil prices have forced Filipino rice farmers to contend with soaring fertilizer costs which have gone up by more than half in recent months, an official of the Department of Agriculture (DA) said.

OIL companies increased by another 50 centavos the prices of diesel, gasoline and kerosene, citing as basis the continuous surge of oil prices in the world market.

AFTER a textile firm shuttered its plant in Namibia, retrenched Filipino workers held a strike to oppose the company’s demand which instructed them to leave the South African country without severance pay or shoulder all responsibility for their repatriation.

CEMENT prices will stay the same even during the summer months—seen as the peak of construction activity—and the period when commodity costs traditionally go up.

NAGA, Zamboanga Sibugay—Agrarian-reform beneficiaries who used to be rubber-plantation workers are now enjoying the fruits of their labor, especially after wiping out their cooperative’s P60-million deficit in 15 years.

THE Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) has extended over P125 million in loans to 12,000 households in agrarian-reform communities (ARCs) nationwide through the Agri-Finance Solutions (Agrisol), a program jointly implemented by the bank and the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) , with funding support from the World Bank.