Rice safeguard duties to be imposed next month — DA

MANILA, Philippines — The government is set to place general safeguard duties on rice imports by the end of the month or early October.

In a statement, Agriculture Secretary William Dar said the Department of Agriculture (DA) has already started the process of investigations that would lead to the imposition of a general safeguards duty on rice imports and arrest their influx, particularly in the forthcoming main harvest season.

“We have started investigations and we expect to complete them by end of September or early October,” Dar said.

The imposition of a safeguard duty on rice imports is one of the measures that the DA is banking on to stabilize the supply and price of rice.

Currently, the Philippines produces 93 percent of its total national rice requirements, with the remaining seven percent imported.

“We have to holistically and systematically protect the consuming public and much more our small farmers,” Dar said.

“So, I have taken the necessary steps and the direction where we will enforce legal measures to at least double the current tariff of 35 percent, during these times when we have greatly exceeded the volume needed to fill up the slack in national rice supply, most particularly in Metro Manila and major urban rice consumption centers,” Dar said.

The measure is in line with Republic Act 8752 (Anti-Dumping Act of 1999), where government can impose anti-dumping duties on imports of any product, including rice and other basic food items, that are priced way below the current fair market value.

Under the Rice Tariffication Law, the government may “increase, reduce, revise” import duty rates given certain conditions consistent with national interest and the “objective of protecting Filipino farmers and consumers.”

By raising tariffs, imports will become more expensive, thereby providing room for local traders to dispose of their stocks and buy again from farmers at higher prices.

Dar said at present, 2.4 million metric tons of rice are imported, or way above what is needed by the country.

“We will protect our small farmers by not allowing additional imports, especially this main harvest season. We want them to benefit from the respectable farmgate prices of palay set by the government through the National Food Authority (NFA),” Dar said.

Local farmgate prices of palay have been dropping since the implementation of the Rice Tariffication law in March.

Based on latest figures from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), average price of palay fell 4.4 percent to P16.68 per kilo as of end-August.

This is an annual decrease of 27.4 percent from its level of P22.98 per kilo in the same week of the previous year.

Apart from raising tariffs, the DA added that another option is to impose stringent sanitary and pytho-sanitary (SPS) inspection measures for rice imports.

“We have asked BPI (Bureau of Plant Industry) to implement protocol in import regulations regarding pesticide residue, presence of storage pests before the issuance of SPS certificate for imported rice,” Dar earlier said.

DA is also looking at the imposition of a suggested retail price “when figures don’t reflect true value of price” to ensure traders do not take advantage of the situation by managing the inflow of supply to domestic market.

Dar said the government would legislate an increase in rice buffer stock from 30 days to 90 days to provide higher government budget for buying of palay and ensure better income for farmers.

“We will enjoin LGUs to engage in the business of buying palay, milling, storing and distributing with the objective of immediately releasing rice stocks so that turnover of the value of rice may be realized, bringing multiple profits to Filipino farmers and other stakeholders,” he said earlier.