PALAYAN CITY – Were have all the harvests gone? Having posted a total harvest of 2,137,170.69 metric tons of palay last year, Nueva Ecija has earned the Rice Achiever’s Award that came with P4-million cash reward in 2012.
In fact, eight other municipalities in the province bagged similar recognition and got P1 million each, according to provincial agriculturist Serafin Santos.
Records from the provincial agriculture office showed that Nueva Ecija farmers have increased their harvest to 6.06 metric tons per hectare in 2012, a dramatic increase from only 4.56 mt per hectare in the previous year.
Of the 2012 total harvest, the biggest portion came from areas planted to certified seeds which posted 1,723,102.72 metric tons, followed by the hybrid at 407,160.05mt and good seeds or inbred, 6,907,.92 mt.
To have this realized, Santos said, the local government of Nueva Ecija had augmented the Department of Agriculture’s rice production program by providing farmers loan assistance to farmers of P10,000 per hectare that was payable after harvest at 6% flat interest.
This program, initially covered 2,000 hectares, Santos explained. But rice consumers lamented that while agriculture officials claim that Nueva Ecija contribute 48% to Central Luzon’s total rice production, they are now having hard time looking for quality affordable grains in the market.
“Yung tig-P37 (a kilo) ay halos hindi mo na makain,” said a housewife who bought a few kilos of commercial rice from a retail store in Cabanatuan City.
She, like most consumers in queue in various rice retailers, expressed surprise on why Nueva Ecija was not spared from an apparent shortage of commercial rice.
A former offi cial of the Marcos-era National Grains Authority (NGA) sees the hands of traders ganging up on consumers as a cartel behind the shortage of commercial rice in the market that resulted to spiraling prices.
Pres Evangelista, regional manager for Central Luzon of NGA in the late 60s, said traders the sudden increase in rice prices in the last few weeks was “beyond normal market activity,” even if the government maintains the shortage was artificial.
“That cannot be, the cartel is behind all of these things,” Evangelista said. He said the National Food Authority (NFA) should be more strict in conducting regular monitoring of stocks position the whole year round.
“There is a cartel here,” he said. Evangelista said that there was a time when cartel also tried to monopolize the rice industry during Martial Law era but “we were able to correct it because we tried to Filipinize the industry.
Santos explained that the government has no control on where farmers sell their produce during harvest season. In fact, he explained, most agents who go all the way to farm gate to buy the bulk of harvest are coming from provinces outside of Nueva Ecija, specially Bulacan.
“The NFA can only buy so much as prices offered by agents of private traders are more competitive,” Santos said. This was affirmed by a rice mill operator from Sta. Rosa town who said that his machines have not been working for weeks already due to lack of palay. He expects supply from Isabela province soon.
“Malapit na ‘yan dahil nag-umpisa na ang Isabela,” the rice mill owner said. Meanwhile, the NFA regional office reported a buffer stock of 1.77 million bags “which is good to last until the end of the year.”
