SAN JOSE CITY – If the P2 per kilogram hike in the price of rice is bad enough and is eliciting nationwide howls, expect it to jack up further especially during the lean months when the supply is really very thin.
This was the educated prediction voiced out by the president of the 26-member rice millers association here. The increase in milled rice price was predicted by Edgardo Alfonso, president of the San Jose City Rice Millers Association (SJCRMA), in March when the farmgate price of palay prevailed at an unprecedented level.
“We bought the dried palay at P25 a kilogram and P20 to P21 for the fresh harvest. At those purchase prices, we cannot be expected to sell it at lower than P38 per kilogram of the milled rice,” Alfonso said. He said from the wholesalers to whom they deliver their rice, the rice still has to go to retailers. Naturally, they will add some amounts in order to earn which is the natural course of things in business, he added.
The current buying price of commercial rice in the market, which is reported to be higher by P2 than its old price some months ago, has been earning flaks for the government. At best, the government’s response to the criticism, based on the pronouncement by the government spokesperson, is that it will stabilize in a few months when there will be enough supply in the market.
“We agree that there is a thin supply of rice in the market right now due to the unattained target for the rice self-sufficiency program and that’s why the government imported rice. But we don’t see that the price of commercial rice can be pushed down as that would mean losses for those engaged in the grains business,” Alfonso said.
“It’s only the imported rice by the NFA that can be pegged, not the commercial rice,” he added. He said their selling price for their respective wholesaler clients may still go up. “We are currently buying palay from the traders for at least at P26 per kilogram.
This means that for the premium rice (whole grains), it will be sold to the wholesalers at P45 per kilogram and P40 per kilogram for those with broken grains,” Alfonso said.
Add to that price the amount that the retailers will be selling to the consumers and you will have an idea of how much the milled rice will be sold to the public, he added.
No cartel
The SJCRMA president said he doesn’t believe that there is a rice cartel dictating the price of rice in the market.
Currently, he said they are distributing to their clients in Metro Manila, to Cebu, Southern Tagalog provinces and other places, at least 30,000 bags of milled rice daily and they are doing it on their own without being dictated by anybody.
He estimated that the milled rice here being distributed is about five per cent of the daily rice requirement in the country. He revealed that what they were able to buy during the last harvest season was only 70 percent of their usual past stocks.
He said the rice millers here did not anticipate the increase in the buying price of palay to as much as 33 per cent compared to last year’s farmgate price and so they ran short of capital. Besides, he said, there was a sudden surge in the number of palay buyers this season.
Alfonso was vocal in saying that there appeared to be problems in the strategy in handling the rice supply problem in the country which the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the National Food Authority (NFA) have been employing.
“In the first place, why did the DA allow the rice millers and the traders to offer very high farm gate price of palay at an unprecedented level this year? They should have made some interventions. It was okay that the farmers earned much but how about the consumers now? They are crying because of the high price of milled rice,” he said.
Alfonso said the government should now consult with the leaders of the rice industry in order to establish correct strategies in handling the rice situation and problem in the country. “They may be able to give recommendations worthy of study and implementation by the government,” Alfonso said.
