FARMERS SEEK MORE FUNDS FOR PRICE SUPPORT, HIT RICE TARIFF LAW
A GROUP of farmers on Monday called on the government for an additional palay procurement and price support as the impact of the rice tariffication law (RTL) appeared to have been underestimated.
The National Movement for Food Sovereignty (NMFS) expressed its dismay on the termination of the process of studying the imposition of safeguard duties on imported rice, the surge rice imports in the country, and the continuous plummeting of palay farm-gate prices.
Trinidad Domingo, chairman of Katipunan ng Bagong Pilipina (Kabapa) and co-convenor of the NMFS, said the National Food Authority (NFA) must be provided with an additional budget for palay procurement in order to bring back the P20 per kg price support.
“The government should have increased the palay procurement capacity of NFA in order for the agency to absorb at the minimum 10 percent of the country’s palay production,” she said.
Also, Domingo said the NFA should be provided with more warehouses and dryers.
According to Domingo, NFA warehouses in Central Luzon cannot accommodate all of the farmers trying to sell their palay.
“This leaves farmers no choice but to sell their produce to rice traders at a lower price. NFA buys dried palay at P19 per kg, while traders buy them for as low as P10 to P12/kg,” she said.
“Moreover, the NFA cannot accept wet palay as they do not have enough dryers to dry all of the wet palay brought to them for sale. This also leaves farmers the option to sell at as low as P7 to P12 per kg to traders,” Domingo added.
NMFS wants Congress to immediately repeal the RTL, which took effect in March 2019, to protect the livelihood of 2.4 million rice farmers in the country.
“As it is still harvest time, palay prices have already dived down to as low as P7 per kg in some parts of Central Luzon,” the group
said.
The group has demanded that the rice importation be halted immediately and implementation of the RTL be suspended while palay harvests are ongoing.
