The Department of Agriculture (DA) considers the proposed amendments to the Rice Tariffication Law as stabilizing the prices and supply of the grain with the National Food Authority (NFA) regaining its authority to import.

Speaker Martin Romualdez said continuing reforms in the grains trade have raised his confidence that rice will be sold below P30 per kilo as early as July.

The DA is also actively scouring the country to find areas where affordable, well-milled rice is available.

According to DA spokesperson Assistant Secretary Arnel de Mesa, the search for affordable rice crops is led by the Kadiwa outlets of the National Irrigation Administration that undertakes contract farming, where the NFA and farmers cooperatives’ inputs are subsidized by the government.

“In return, they will sell the rice to the NFA. We are sure that the production input will be cheaper, and because of this, there is an opportunity to sell the rice cheaper in the market,” he said, further ensuring that the rice sold will be of good quality.

The value of production in agriculture and fisheries at constant 2018 prices posed a slight growth of 0.05 percent year-on-year to P428.99 billion in the first quarter, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

The modest growth was attributed to the increase in the value of poultry production, which rose by 5.9 percent to P68.76 billion during the period.

The DA expressed optimism that amendments to the RTL will benefit consumers through stable prices of rice even during national emergencies.

“Amending the RTL will help, especially in cases where we expect a shortage in supply [or] high prices [of rice] in the market. That is exactly what the amendments to the RTL want to focus on, especially in Section 5, where the NFA is given the power to intervene in the market in these kinds of situations,” De Mesa said.

Under the RTL, which was enacted in 2019, proceeds from the tariff of about P10 billion annually go to the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) that is directly distributed as aid to local farmers.

P5K for each farmer

The amount is broken down into P5 billion for mechanization, P3 billion for inbred seeds, P1 billion for loans, and P1 billion for training.

“This means the excess in the collection goes back to the rice farmers as assistance. That’s P5,000 for each farmer whose farm does not exceed two hectares,” De Mesa said.

“The funds in the General Appropriation Act (GAA) for the National Rice Program are also for our farmers,” he added, noting that the RCEF is limited to some 57 provinces, while the GAA fund is for all the farmers in the country.

On Tuesday, the House Committee on Agriculture and Food approved the bill amending the RTL and allowing the NFA to buy and sell rice.

Gov’t aid effective in helping farmers

According to Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr., the government’s interventions and assistance allowed the agriculture sector to “fare better in the first quarter compared to periods in the past when the country suffered from El Niño.”

“The impact of reduced rainfall and hotter temperatures were evident in lower crops and fisheries production in the first quarter,” he said.

“If El Niño will persist through the second quarter, we’re cautiously optimistic that the interventions we have taken will allow the agriculture sector to mend and return better results between April and June,” Laurel added.

Contractions in the value of production were seen in crops, livestock, and fisheries.

Crop production, estimated at P247.04 billion, posed an annual reduction of 0.3 percent, which shared 57.6 percent of the total value of production in the agribusiness sector.

The value of palay production declined by 2.0 percent.

Meanwhile, the value of livestock production, which stands at P59.46 billion, contracted by 3.6 percent, accounting for 13.9 percent of the total value of agribusiness production.

The PSA noted that the value of hog production decreased by 4.3 percent.

Lastly, fisheries production, valued at P3.73 billion, was also reduced by 1.3 percent during the period, which accounts for 12.5 percent of the total value of agribusiness production.