DA seeks involvement of farmers, LGUs’ in RCEF

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture (DA) wants to involve farmers, local government units (LGUs) and the private sector in the implementation of the P10-billion Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) under the Rice Tariffication Law, branded as an “injustice to farmers” by some lawmakers.

Agriculture Secretary William Dar yesterday said farmers and groups thereof have been neglected for many years.

“Successful cooperatives are very few. Only few farmers associations are thriving so we need to help them,” Dar said during his meeting with officials and farmers in agricultural institutions in Muñoz, Nueva Ecija.

The Central Luzon State University, Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization, Philippine Carabao Center and Philippine Rice Research Institute briefed Dar on programs, specifically in the implementation of the controversial Rice Liberalization Law, also known as Rice Tariffication Law.

Dar said the RCEF’s objectives will help farmers thrive.

“Yun po ang gusto nating mangyari na palakasin ang mga rice farmers,” Dar said, referring to objectives set by RCEF as under the controversial Rice Tariffication Law or Republic Act 11203.

The law was enacted since the Philippines was signatory to an agreement with the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 that allowed the country to limit rice imports for a specified period to give the government enough time to strengthen and make rice farmers competitive with the expected influx of imports of the grain.

Under the agreement, which expired in 2017, once the period permitting the imposition on restrictions on rice imports lapses, the country must liberalize and allow full importation of the staple but with a 35-percent tariff.

The 35-percent tariff is supposed to be one of the measures to help protect farmers from competitive pricing of rice imports.

Assistance in all programs including research and distribution under RCEF should be poured to farmers initially until they reached sustainability by enlisting the involvement of LGUs and the private sector, the agriculture chief said.

This paradigm, he explained, will transform such groups into corporations in the second year of RTL implementation.

Magsasaka party-list Rep. Argel Joseph Cabatbat, however, expressed alarm over the repercussions of the new Rice Tariffication Law, calling the new law an “injustice” to local farmers.

In a weekly forum at the House of Representatives yesterday, Cabatbat said the law signed by President Duterte last February has defeated its purpose as it actually made things worse for farmers.

“From what we’ve heard from the farmers themselves, their situation has become pitiful. They continue to suffer losses and cannot cope with the continuous drop in imported rice (prices),” he stressed in Filipino. – With Louise Maureen Simeon, Ramon Efren Lazaro