EDITORIAL — Food security emergency

A maximum suggested retail price of P58 per kilo for imported rice takes effect today as the government appears set to declare a “food security emergency.” What such an emergency entails is unclear, but President Marcos has said that the objective is to force rice retail prices to go down.

One measure that requires the declaration of a food security emergency is the release of old rice stocks of the National Food Authority to local government units, for sale at subsidized prices. Before the declaration was considered, concerns had been raised that the rice stocks had been sitting too long in NFA warehouses and could rot.

The maximum SRP is not the first attempt of the national government to force rice retail prices to go down. The measure is being implemented after the President issued Executive Order No. 62 in June last year, cutting tariffs on imports of rice and several other agricultural and industrial commodities from 35 percent to 15 percent until 2028.

Government officials have blamed the sustained high rice prices on the effects of the El Niño weather phenomenon as well as increasing demand from a continually growing population. Hoarding, cartel operations and other unfair trade practices have also been blamed. Several congressional investigations and high-profile raids on warehouses, however, have failed to result in indictments or penalties against alleged manipulators of rice prices and supply.

Rice farmers and the general public are also waiting for the reduction of the number of middlemen to cut the markups from the farm gate to the market. This measure has been discussed even when the President was concurrently serving as the secretary of agriculture. He often cited the need to overhaul the supply chain not only for rice but also for other agricultural commodities, to bring down retail prices while at the same time raising the income of farmers. The slow action on this plan has raised suspicions that local government officials and other politicians are among the middlemen who cannot be touched.

While waiting for this plan to materialize, people are also awaiting the provision of more cold chain facilities. Farmers still dump their crops by the roadside during gluts and then suffer from importations that start during off-season but often overlap with harvest time.

Millions of Filipinos depend on agriculture for a living, but many of them live below the poverty line. Recent studies have shown that young Filipinos are increasingly refusing to engage in farming and fisheries. This mindset could lead to a genuine national food security emergency and must be reversed through sufficient support for the agriculture sector.