DA keen on taming rice prices in 2025

MANILA, Philippines — Rice, rice, rice. More rice. A lot of rice. If you ask Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. what would be his biggest challenge next year, he would answer with a resounding “rice.”

“The biggest challenge would be to bring the price of rice down,” Tiu Laurel says.

Rice, the nation’s staple, has been long considered as a political commodity in the Philippines. It is so vital - and critical - that it can topple a president.

Experts and agriculture industry players even joke about it: high pork prices would not pull down the ratings of a president nor define a presidency. But rice prices will.

And this year was no different. It was all about rice, too. From tariff reduction to sticky retail prices - it was and it will always be about rice.

In July, President Marcos issued Executive Order (EO) 62 that set the country’s tariff rates for the next five years. But the EO also included the reduction of the country’s tariff rate on rice to 15 percent, the lowest level in history, from 35 percent.

Marcos did it with the aim of pulling down the retail price of the staple which has been identified as one of if not the biggest contributor to the country’s inflation.

Some of his Cabinet officials even promised that rice prices would fall by as much as P6 per kilo because of the tariff reduction, which certain quarters of the agriculture sector were lukewarm of.

To date, rice prices have not fallen to the level that some economists and government officials projected it would be as a result of the economic measure.

Even officials from the National Economic and Development Authority were left puzzled as to why the economic promise of the tariff reduction did not materialize.

But for Tiu Laurel, the rice tariff reduction still worked, somehow.

“Now, let us say that rice prices did not go down as expected. But one thing is for sure: it did not increase,” the agriculture chief said, noting that the tariff reduction was able to arrest any possible spikes in retail rice prices caused by domestic and external factors.

Rice prices in Metro Manila today hover around P42 to P52 per kilo, for locallyproduced stocks, while imported supplies range from P42 to P56 per kilo.

At the start of the tariff reduction, locallyproduced rice was sold between P45 and P55 per kilo while imported stocks were between P47 and P55 per kilo.

The country’s rice inflation continued to slow down as it settled at 5.1 percent in November, far-fetched from the double-digit rates it recorded earlier this year, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.

“If international rice prices continue to ease, the peso remains stable, and tariffs stay low, we would most likely see the price of well-milled rice decline further in the coming months,” Tiu Laurel said.

The agriculture chief also looks forward to the implementation of the new amended rice tariffication law (RTL) that somehow restored some of the regulatory powers of the government lost in the initial law. These powers include registration of warehouses, visitation powers, among others.

Tiu Laurel is also keen on bringing back the powers of the National Food Authority (NFA) that were stripped of under the RTL, particularly market intervention.

At present, the Department of Agriculture (DA) sells rice in the market lower than the prevailing retail prices through its Kadiwa program. The stocks sold are either locallyproduced or imported ones bought from farmers and traders.

The DA currently sells rice at P40 per kilo under its Rice-for-All program and P29 per kilo through its P29 program wherein the stocks sold are the aging supplies of the NFA but still fit for human consumption.

The government agency is also selling rice at MRT stations and penetrating more public markets in Metro Manila amid opposition from some market masters.

Tiu Laurel said he would discuss with President Marcos the bill that would restore the commercial functions of the NFA and have it certified as urgent.

“We do not plan to control the prices. We just want to provide the Filipino people with an option to buy this rice at this price,” he said.

The DA is now looking at reducing the price of its rice sold under the Rice-for-All program to as low as P38 per kilo next month if the various economic factors, like exchange rate and international rice prices, remain favorable.

“What I am asking is a budget for an additional 1,300 fixed Kadiwa stores and 1,500 stores inside wet markets. So that would be one in every municipality,” Tiu Laurel said.

The DA recently received a letter from the Office of the President, greenlighting the use of the additional P5 billion for its rice sale programs.

The agriculture chief is also optimistic that the country would break next year the record palay harvest of 20.06 million metric tons posted in 2023.

This, Tiu Laurel explained, would be a result of better weather conditions and the various interventions given by the government to palay farmers from better quality seeds, expanded irrigation systems to multiple rice processing systems.

The DA will also roll-out new rice selling programs next year such as the Sulit Rice and Nutri-Rice.

The Sulit Rice is 100 percent broken rice to be sold between P35 and P36 per kilo but would be 100 percent broken.

Meanwhile, Nutri-Rice would be rice that underwent only a single pass in the milling process, making it more nutritious and high in fiber content while making it cheaper to produce. It would be sold between P36 and P37 per kilo.

“The story has always been rice-centric because of the clamor of the people. That’s still the major issue that keeps on hounding us,” Tiu Laurel said.