Zambo rice crisis blamed on smuggling

Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol yesterday blamed Zamboanga’s reliance on smuggled rice for the shortage in the staple grain being felt in the region.

A day after Zamboanga City officials asked for additional rice allocation from the National Food Authority (NFA), the agriculture official opposed proposals to rely on additional importations to ease tight supply in Mindanao.

In a post in his Facebook page, Piñol claimed Zamboanga City as well as the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi has been relying on smuggled rice from Vietnam and Thailand for many years.

Now that the government has cracked down on smuggling, the resulting tightness of rice supply in Zamboanga City has resulted in the grain being sold from P60 to P70 per kilo.

Piñol said there had been no serious effort by local government officials in the aforementioned areas to develop and support the rice industry due to the heretofore proliferation of cheap, quality smuggled rice sold from P29 to P35 a kilo.

Farmers and traders have given up on local rice production as they were unable to compete with the prices of smuggled rice and even rice imported legally.

Three weeks ago, President Rodrigo Duterte and Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad agreed to curtail illegal activities in their borders, including the smuggling of rice to Zamboanga via Sabah, Malaysia.

Shutting off the rice supply from Sabah is now partly being blamed for the tight supply in Zamboanga and the island provinces.

Piñol thumbed down proposal from some other government officials to import more rice to stabilize supply and bring down prices by as much as P7 a kilo.

“Relying on imports and reducing government expenditure on rice programs would drive farmers away from their farms,” he said.

Piñol cited the country’s experience in 2008 when huge volumes of imported rice dictated local pricing below the cost of production of rice produced by Filipino farmers.

Over reliance on imports will also make the Philippines vulnerable to rice supply tightness in exporting countries that may result from natural calamities.

Rice exporting countries also have their own needs to contend and with its population increasing, the Philippines may find itself with having too little to import.

“The country’s rice famers are now producing 93 percent of our total requirements,” said Piñol, noting their achievement of posting the highest harvest in history of about 19.28 million metric tons.