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RICE
farmers and members of civil-society groups Wednesday
warned that the worst in the country’s rice- supply woes
is yet to come as they predict the prices of rice will
soar to as high as P40 a kilogram (kg) during the lean
months of July to September unless the government acts
with dispatch to prevent what could be a serious rice
crisis.
Jessica
Reyes-Cantos, lead convenor of Rice Watch and Action
Network (R1), said reports of the tightening global
supply of rice have pushed local prices in the market of
the country’s staple food abnormally high even as the
harvest season is still headed for its peak in April.
Worse,
peasant leader Jaime Tadeo of the National Rice Farmers
Council predicted a rice-production shortfall,
considering the devastation brought about by the
agricultural drought and super typhoons last year.
This
early, he said unscrupulous rice traders are buying
palay from farmers at P12/kg to P16/kg, apparently with
the intention of manipulating rice supply and price in
the lean months.
He said
rice farmers are lured to sell their palay to rice
traders rather than the National Food Authority (NFA)
because of the latter’s low buying price of P10/kg.
Unless the NFA increases its buying price from its
present level to at least P16/kg to P18/kg, it will not
be able to buy enough to ensure price stability, he
said.
The
group said the P1.5-billion augmentation budget allotted
by the Department of Agriculture (DA) will not solve the
problem, as it will only temporarily feed the hungry
during the lean months when hunger and poverty are
expected to be felt more severely.
Instead
of using the P1.5 billion to distribute food coupons to
the poor, the government should use it to increase the
buying price of palay to ensure enough supply lasting
until the end of the lean months. That way, they said,
the rice cartel will not be able to successfully control
or manipulate the supply and price of rice in the
market.
Moreover, they said, it is high time the government
deals with the members of the rice cartels involved in
rice supply and price manipulation. One way, Tadeo
suggested, was by putting up warehouses in every
rice-producing barangay so that farmers could store
their palay for long periods of time and sell them to
the NFA at a more reasonable price, instead of selling
to rice traders.
With the
low buying price of the NFA, Trinidad Domingo, chairman
of the Pambansang Koalisyon ng Kababaihan sa Kanayunan
and a rice farmer from Nueva Ecija, said traders will be
able to manipulate the price of rice in the market.
“The
price of rice is expected to go up to as high as P40 by
July as the traders will definitely take advantage of
the limited supply while the government will be
dependent on the imported rice for its buffer stock,”
Tadeo said.
He said
the harvest during the last quarter of the month is good
for four months, while this coming season’s harvest will
last for two months.
Tadeo
computed the expected rice supply this harvest season
based on the 868,509 hectares of irrigated rice farms
that will be delivering the produce this April, while
the rain-fed areas or the rice lands without irrigation
are expected to harvest only by October or November.
Meanwhile, a former party-list lawmaker urged the
government to strengthen its rice-intervention program
to stabilize its price.
Former
Anakpawis party-list representative Rafael Mariano said
the intervention could be through the intensified palay
buying by the NFA.
Mariano
said the government should increase the budgetary
allocation of the NFA to increase its purchase of palay
from farmers instead of allocating funds to import rice
from other countries.
He said
the NFA’s intervention should start from the planting of
the crop up to its harvest, unlike the present setup
wherein “the NFA only intervenes during harvest” by
buying the farmers’ produce.
This
way, he said the rice farmers would not be indebted to
the usurers who are traders themselves and who “corner”
the bulk of the production, and dictate the rice prices
in the markets.
It was
learned from the NFA provincial office in Zamboanga City
that the agency is buying clean and dry palay from the
farmers at P11/kg.
An
additional 15 centavos a kilo is paid to farmers who
sell palay with 14-percent moisture content; plus a
delivery incentive of 10 centavos and 25 centavos for
Cooperative Development Incentive Fee (CDIF). However,
the farmer could avail himself of the CDIF only if he is
a member of a cooperative accredited by the NFA.
Mariano
added that the Agriculture department, which has
supervision over the NFA, should provide a
credit-subsidy program to rice farmers to prevent them
from going to usurers.
He said
the government should also increase the budgetary
allocation for the irrigation program to make the
country rice self-sufficient.
He said
the Philippines should do away with importation of rice
and instead use the funds for irrigation, noting that
only about 800,000 hectares of the total 4 million
hectares of rice fields are irrigated.
The
country could be 100-percent rice self-sufficient if the
entire 4 million hectares of rice fields are fully
irrigated, Mariano said. The rice self-sufficiency of
the country is only 85 percent to 90 percent, he said.
Meanwhile, Zamboanga Grains Retailers Association
president Alex Go attributed the increase in the prices
of rice to the continuous oil price hike coupled with
the increase in prices of farm inputs, such as
insecticides and fertilizers. |
