Farmers decry deferment of rice import suspension

Maria Romero · Nov 24, 2019, 3:05 AM

Montemayor explained that SPSIC measures are intended to protect local crops from pests and diseases that may come with imported rice and ensure that foreign rice is safe for consumption and not to stop or control imports.

Department of Agriculture Secretary William Dar said the government will no longer push through with the directive at least during the harvest season. DA PHOTO

Members of the organized group Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) last week expressed apprehension about the government’s apparent inconsistency and lack of coherence over the directive to suspend imports while the current harvests are ongoing.

FFF national manager Raul Montemayor said the government officials tend to focus on “palliative and band-aid solutions” to the problems of local farmers as they continue to fail to suspend the rice imports following the surge of imports and the drastic decline in palay farm-gate prices.

“President Duterte announced the stoppage of imports during harvest time as early as July 2019 in a dialogue with farmers in Ilocos Sur but his directive was not followed,” Montemayor said.

As a result, rice imports ballooned to 3 million metric tons (MT) or more than double our import requirements for the year, making the Philippines the top rice importer in the world.

Department of Agriculture (DA) William Dar told a press briefing on Thursday that the government will no longer push through with the directive at least during the harvest season.

Dar said the Philippine government will not make any move that will amend the Rice Tariffication Law (RTL), which allowed the unrestricted entry of more imported rice into the country.

The government will instead intensify the palay and rice operations of the National Food Authority, expand the coverage of the cash transfer program for affected rice farmers, and tighten the issuance of sanitary and phytosanitary import clearances (SPSIC) to rice importers.

Montemayor noted that the P3 billion annual allotment for the cash transfer program will be sufficient for only 600,000 rice farmers out of the total farming population of 2.5 million farmers.

It added that the cash transfer of P5,000 is minuscule compared to the P20,000 to P30,000 that farmers are losing every season because of the drop in palay prices.

Montemayor said that the tightening of SPSIC issuance will provide only temporary relief to farmers.

“Once importers can comply with the new requirements, DA cannot deny them the SPSIC. The RTL says that DA must act on a SPSIC application within seven days following submission of all requirements,” he said.