Despite this, the price of rice has continued to be out of reach of poor folk in the rural areas amid reports that in urban areas, rice prices went down, Anakpawis partylist Rep. Fernando Hicap said yesterday.
“Just recently the National Food Authority (NFA) awarded Vietnam through government- to-government trade deal scheme 150,000 MT. Also it got an approval for the procurement of another 250,000 MT and has an option to buy another 100,000 MT ostensibly to secure stocks of rice in the coming lean months from July to September.
But despite the massive volumes of rice imports, the price of commercial rice in the local market continues to be put out of reach of ordinary consumers” noted Hicap.
Hicap cited NFA as claiming that the price of rice went down in the market in the past months. Well milled rice went down from P39.02 to P38.57 per kilo while regular NFA rice dropped from P35.76 to P35.35 per kilo. Average commercial well milled rice on the other hand went down from P 42.12 to P41.72 per kilo while regular milled rice also cut its price from P38.47 to P37.97 per kilogram.
But the party list lawmaker said that this downward trend was limited to some major cities and towns. The lower rice price is not felt nationwide. “Even these lowered prices are not readily affordable to the masses.
The P15 wage increase is not even enough for transport fares for work,” Hicap added.
Hicap noted Food Security and Agricultural Modernization Sec. Francis Pangilinan’s admission that 26 percent of NFA rice goes to the poor and about 74 percent either goes to waste or illegally converted to commercial rice by some traders.
“Now we are wary that the additional rice imports of 250,000 MT plus the 805, 000 MT coming from the traders which the government allowed to be delivered in the 3rd quarter of this year will be used to manipulate the prices of rice in the market just like what happened in the past” Hicap said.
“The NFA policy of continuing massive rice importation not only undermines the development of our local rice industry but is also sending a very wrong signal that importation is the only answer to rice shortage.
In fact it is using the sorry state of the local rice industry to further advance the interest of few players in the industry and continuing subservience to one sided agreements in the World Trade Organization particularly in the agricultural sector.
The only way to secure affordable and sufficient locally produced rice supply would mean the implementation of genuine agrarian land reform on top of getting our agriculture out of the WTO” Hicap also said.
