THE price of regular rice in the domestic market should be lower following the claims of the Department of Agriculture (DA) that the tight supply of rice has softened as reflected by the decline in the price of the produce in the international market, according to a nongovernment organization involved in the rice sector.

Rice Watch and Action Network (R1) also urged Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap to investigate why the prices of rice remain high and therefore unaffordable, despite claims from several sectors that the tight supply of rice has softened.

“We have seen raids and arrests of alleged suspects of rice hoarding, but we did not see and hear anybody gets proven guilty and therefore penalized. More important, the measures are obviously not enough to keep the prices from going up, despite the harvest in March-April this year,” said R1 lead convenor Jessica Reyes-Cantos.

R1 noted the figures released by the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS) under the DA wherein palay production reached 3.75 million metric tons (MMT) in March this year and is slightly higher than last year’s record by 1.96 percent.

The group also pointed out that Conrado Ibañez, National Food Authority’s (NFA) assistant administrator and assistant secretary who heads the private sector auction committee, declared that the weak response from traders on Tuesday’s rice tender showed that local demand for rice “may not be as intense as compared with several weeks ago.”

“The question remains, where are these supplies that will supposedly soften the impact of very steep global prices of rice? The government cannot possibly blame the farmers of holding on to their palay because they also need to secure rice for their own consumption,” said Cantos.

According to BAS price monitoring, the prices of rice in the market as of May 27, 2008, range from P33 to P37 a kilo. The prices of rice on February 27, 2008, just before the prices rapidly increased, range from P24 to P28 per kilo.

Cantos cites the NFA for selling rice in the commercial market at P25 per kilo but this should be widely available to present a credible threat to commercial rice traders who continue to sell at very high prices.

“We are worried that the price will not go back to the pre-crisis level but it should taper [off] a bit to make the staple food more affordable to poor consumers and farmers,” said Cantos.

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THE price of regular rice in the domestic market should be lower following the claims of the Department of Agriculture (DA) that the tight supply of rice has softened as reflected by the decline in the price of the produce in the international market, according to a nongovernment organization involved in the rice sector.

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