Group backs NFA plan to hike buying price of palay

MANILA, Philippines — The Alliance for Resilience, Sustainability and Empowerment (ARISE) is supporting the initiative of the National Food Authority (NFA) to raise its buying price for palay (unhusked rice), but it should be above P22 to allow farmers to earn.

NFA is seeking additional funds to make possible the increase of the buying price of palay from the current P19 per kilo to P20 to P21 per kilo.

In a statement, ARISE said boosting the buying price of palay would give local farmers the much-needed respite as they struggle against the widespread practice of importation by private traders and the government.

The additional funding will not only help the destitute sector get back on its feet, but will also pave the way for an improved buffer stock, the group said.

ARISE convenor and director Arze Glipo said they were hopeful the additional funds being sought by NFA from legislators and local government units (LGUs) would be given.

She said it would not be a problem for LGUs where to source the fund as the Land Bank of the Philippines had reportedly expressed its willingness to lend farmer associations for this initiative.

An ARISE farmer said an additional P1 to P2 “will not hurt the purse of our legislators or the LGUs.”

Should NFA increase the buying price of cleaned palay and dried palay to P22 and P25, respectively, farmers will at least earn not less than P10 per kilo.

“Anything less than P22 would badly hurt the farmers,” crop science expert and professor Ted Mendoza said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Glipo said it would be far more beneficial if the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) would buy palay directly from the farmers or include farmer families as beneficiaries as they are deserving of the government’s dole outs.

Farmers in Mindanao have started harvesting and expressed support for NFA and ARISE’s call to increase the buying price of palay.

Farmer leader Flor Comendador called on the Department of Agriculture (DA) for post-harvest facilities, including drying equipment and trucks for procurement of fresh palay as they find  it difficult to bring their produce to the NFA warehouses.

ARISE recently conducted an assessment forum on the current agriculture situation and the readiness of the government to address the looming food crisis.

“The bomb ticks every minute. PBBM referring to President Marcos] should heed the call of farmers before this food crisis blows up into a food calamity,” Glipo said.

The Amihan National Federation of Peasant Women and Bantay Bigas said farmgate prices of palay in Zaragosa, Nueva Ecija went as low as P13 per kilo, based on its internal data-gathering amid rising costs in inputs and fuel.

“Farmers in Nueva Ecija are calling for the price of rice to be raised to P20 per kilo because inputs have become more expensive. They spent more than P20,000 on fertilizer, which is almost half of their total cost of P44,400 per hectare. The pesticides cost more than P9,000. This is almost the experience of farmers in the country, which the government must resolve,” Amihan secretary-general and Bantay Bigas spokesperson Cathy Estavillo said.

Aside from raising the farm gate price, rice farmers also want the NFA to buy their “sariwang palay” for at least P20 per kilo and remove all the requirements such as 14 percent moisture content.

The groups blamed the continued depressed farmgate prices on the enactment of the Republic Act 11203 or the Rice Liberalization Law, especially when the law decoupled the functions of the NFA to buffer stocking.

Farmers also claimed that they never received any from the national government related from the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund provision of the RLL and the P5,000 Rice Farmers Financial Assistance.