MANILA, Philippines — Several peasant groups yesterday stormed the National Food Authority (NFA) warehouse on Visayas Avenue in Quezon City, demanding at least P20 per kilo support price for palay and the release of P27 NFA rice in the market as an immediate measure to curb the impact of Republic Act 11203 or the Rice Liberalization Law.
“Given the high farming costs and the increase in prices of goods, it is just right that the buying price of palay from farmers should remain at P20 per kilo and should not be cheaper than that,” Amihan secretary-general and Bantay Bigas spokesperson Cathy Estavillo said.
Estavillo added that according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the average rice yield per hectare in 2018 is 3.87 metric tons (3,870 kilos) or gross harvest of P77,400 at P20 per kilo. Taking away P49,745, the average cost of production (2017 PSA data) will give farmers a net income of P27,655 which is at P6,913.75 per month or P230.46 daily.
“This is barely enough for our farmers to live decently and meet their basic needs but is 14 percent higher than the income if palay prices are at P19 per kilo, the declared support price of the NFA Council,” Estavillo noted.
The groups also called on the NFA to release their stocks of four million sacks of imported rice in the market at P27 per kilo to make rice more affordable for poor and marginalized consumers, especially as NFA rice supply has been scarce amid reports that consumers are limited to only two kilos in some areas.
Agriculture Secretary William Dar recently said flooding the market with NFA rice is part of efforts to bring down retail prices to P27 per kilogram from the current levels of P38 to P40 per kilo.
The move is also intended to decongest the warehouses of NFA rice and generate cash to allow them to buy more palay from farmers at the new support price of P19 per kilo.
However, Raul Montemayor, national manager of the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF), said while the objective of the move is good, it could end up further depressing palay prices for farmers since there is already a big glut in the market because of the large volume of cheap rice imported by private traders.
“This glut is the main reason why palay prices are going down. Flooding the market with NFA rice will just worsen the glut,” he added.
“This move is ill-timed. The main harvest season is about to start. Flooding the market with NFA rice will further limit the market for the fresh harvests of farmers. NFA will not be able to absorb all of the stocks of farmers,” he said.
With the move, FFF emphasized that private traders will buy most of the palay and they will be forced to buy low because they will have to compete not only with the cheap imported price but also the NFA rice.
“There is also no guarantee that retail prices will go down if NFA rice is unloaded. The reason why NFA still has large stocks of imported rice up to now is because retailers prefer to sell imported rice that is of better quality and which provides them a higher profit,” Montemayor said.
Estavillo pointed out that the solutions offered by the Department of Agriculture (DA) and NFA are just palliative and temporary measures.
“What happens is that imported rice will flood the country thus showing our dependence on importation. Though we can still do something by showing support to local rice production,” Estavillo said.
She added, “The only way to resolve this chronic crisis in our farmers’ livelihood and the local rice industry is to repeal the Rice Liberalization Law and implement a rice program that will genuinely make our rice farming profitable and develop the industry towards the attainment of rice self-sufficiency and food security.”
Even the NFA’s rice selling activity now goes against the Rice Liberalization Law because under the law, its mandate to stabilize supply and price of rice has been scrapped and just made the agency a rice warehouse,” Estavillo said.– With Edu Punay, Louise Maureen Simeon, Ramon Efren Lazaro, Jess Diaz