Rice prices are expected to decline but farmers will have to bear the backlash as palay prices will also fall, a farmers group said on Thursday.

Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura, or Sinag, said that palay farmgate prices can drop to as low as P25 per kilo.

“The ones that are dry, which means it can be sold from P28 to P30, are now at P26 to P27. We expect it to dip to P25,” Sinag executive director Jayson Cainglet said in a radio interview.

“That would translate to a drop of P2 to P4 in the retail price of rice,” he added, noting that despite rice spikes in some areas, some rice prices in markets still range between P56 and P60, which he said are old stock rice.

Meanwhile, Cainglet said that the government had lost a big amount in the alleged improper rice buffer stock sale by the National Food Authority or NFA.

 “The government’s loss was due to the sale of P25 instead of P38, because in industry practice, you can sell it at P40 at least. That means the government lost P15 per kilo,” saying that it lost at least P112.5 million due to selling rice at a lower value.

 “If they sell at P50, it’s really bigger, around P180 [million] if they sell it at P50 to P54,” he added.

Traders benefit

“Instead of benefiting the poor or those in emergency or disaster areas, it’s the traders who benefited from the subsidized price of what NFA sold.”

Based on the Department of Agriculture’s latest price monitoring, imported special rice is priced at P57 to P65 per kilo, while premium is between P50 and P65.

Imported well-milled, on the other hand, is valued at P50 to P58, while regular-milled is P48 to P51 per kilo.

 Meanwhile, local special rice is now at P56 to P66 per kilo, premium is at P50 to P61, well-milled is at P48 to P55, and regular milled is at P49 to P50 per kilo.

The price of rice in the country recorded its highest inflation at the national level in 15 years, as per a report by the Philippine Statistics Authority on Tuesday.