MALOLOS CITY— The price of palay has reached record high of P25 per kilo which some officials attributed to the cessation of rice smuggling, lack of irrigation and a series of disasters last year.
Rice traders at the Intercity Industrial Estate in Bocaue town said that palay price has climbed to P25, while local farmers in Bulacan and Nueva Ecija said that farm gate price rose to P23 per kilo.
The National Food Authority (NFA) confirmed such prevailing prices and said their procurement price remain between P17 to P19 per kilo, depending on the quality of rice. “This the first time that palay price reached P25 a kilo,” a trader in Bocaue town who asked not to be named said in the vernacular.
The said price is confirmed by the NFA as the highest price per kilo of palay in the last 10 years. The trader noted that in the past weeks, rice price at Intercity, the known rice trading center in Luzon has fluctuated between P21 to P24 per kilo. He said since the end of March they expected that prices would go down with the coming of locally harvested rice.
However, last week, the price climbed to P25 per kilo due to lack of supply. According to Rex Estoperez, NFA spokesperson, a number of factors contributed to the price hike. In an interview Saturday, Estoperez cited cessation of rice smuggling, lack of irrigation and natural calamities that hit the country late last year.
“Normally, our commercial traders are fighting for summer harvest dahil di na nila kailangang ibilad pa yon at naibebenta agad nila,” he said. He added that while commercial traders immediately sell locally harvested rice, they keep rice in their inventories which, he said, are sourced somewhere.
“Malaki rin ang epekto ng pagtigil ng rice smuggling, pero, siyempre we also have to consider the lack of irrigation and natural calamities,” he said. Estoperez explained that in some areas, irrigation came in late, while in other areas especially those that were hit by calamities, farmers tried to re-plant, but ran out of water.
With regards to increase of palay price, the NFA spokesperson explained that its price will double when the palay is milled. This means that palay bought at P23 will be sold at P46 per kilo after milling. “We expect that milled rice price will increase during the lean months, that’s why the NFA is importing 800,000 metric town,” he said.
This will be in addition to 400,000 metric tons imported late last year, but arrived in the country in January. Estoperez explained that NFA will keep the 800,000 metric tons as buffer stocks in preparation for the lean months from May to July this year.
As this developed, local farmers here are overjoyed with the record high P25 per kilo of palay. However, they express concern that consumers will suffer most. “Ang tatamaan niyan ay mga kababayan din natin dahil sila ang end user, tiyak na tataas ang presyo ng bigas sa tag-ulan kung hindi makokontrol ng NFA ang presyo,” Melencio Domingo said.
As chair of the Malolos City Agriculture and Fisheries Council, Domingo said that the government must provide support to farmers to avoid price hike. Among the assistance he mentioned were seedling and fertilizer subsidy, and
support price for farmers.
For his part, Estoperez said that the government is already subsidizing rice sold by the NFA to the market, that for every kilo of P38 NFA rice, the government is shelling out at least P6 in subsidy.
