A renewed partnership between the government and rice farmers is taking root in Mindoro, as Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. led the send-off of 35,000 bags of rice to Central Visayas on Monday in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro. 

The shipment — the second batch headed for Cebu — is part of a 100,000-bag order secured by Governor Gwen Garcia, with local governments co-funding the subsidy to ensure affordable rice reaches their constituents. 

“Our farmers waited for this,” Tiu Laurel said, following an informal dialogue with local growers who had held off selling to private traders in anticipation of NFA's return to active buying. 

“They believe in this program, and they believe the government will give them a fair price.”

Tiu Laurel, who also chairs the NFA Council, was joined by Administrator Larry Lacson in overseeing a final quality check before the rice was shipped.

“We’re clearing space in our warehouses not just to ship out rice, but to make room for more palay from our farmers,” the agriculture chief said. 

“This is about honoring their labor and offering prices that reflect their sacrifice.”

NFA currently buys palay at P18 per kilo for fresh harvest and up to P24 per kilo for dry, significantly higher than the P13.50 to P18 offered by private traders. This move comes as welcome news to Mindoro’s rice growers, who face production costs ranging from P12 to P14 per kilo.

As of 30 May, the NFA branch in Occidental Mindoro had procured over 405,000 bags of palay – nearly double its target and equivalent to 10 percent of the province’s projected harvest. The agency credited farmers’ decision to withhold their harvest in anticipation of better prices as a vote of confidence in the NFA’s revived buying mandate.

Lacson said nine NFA warehouses nationwide have recently been repaired, with a combined capacity of 455,000 bags. In Mindoro, ongoing repairs to another facility are set to boost total local storage to over 1 million bags, improving the agency’s capacity to mill and store rice for future distributions.

“We will keep milling rice here in Mindoro as long as there’s demand for it and room to buy from our farmers,” Lacson said. 

“They deserve no less. They trusted us to deliver — and we will.”

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, the twin provinces of Occidental and Oriental Mindoro produced 653,117 metric tons of palay in 2023, contributing 3.42 percent to the country’s total rice output.