CITY OF MALOLOS—Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap has ordered an investigation on the alleged diversion of National Food Authority (NFA) rice to outlets other than those authorized by the government.

This was revealed by several Bulacan farmer leaders who met with Yap on Monday, complaining about the alleged big volumes of cheap NFA rice that eventually ends up in the hands of millers, rice processors and traded.

In a letter signed by farmers Simeon Sioson, Leonardo de Rueda, Romeo Obtanilla, Felix Villena and Romulo Ico, the group claimed that cheap NFA rice is supposed to be sold only to poor consumers.

The farmers said that imported rice, be it legal or smuggled, greatly affects the local farmers’ livelihood, and the government has come out with alternative plans to alleviate the farmers’ predicament under the NFA’s Institutionalized Farmers as Distributor and Farmers as Incentive Rice programs, and, at the same time, has approved the farmers’ becoming rice importers.

Currently, under these programs, the NFA has set a ceiling price of P1,175 per sack of rice for the farmers, but the farmers claimed that cheap rice is being sold in markets wholesale at P1,000 to P1,050 per cavan.

In short, the farmers said their commodity under the government’s price ceiling is not competitive enough against the price of the cheap rice, or worse, the price of their palay has also slid down and is being bought by traders from P14 to P15 a kilo, while their premium grains fetch only P17 a kilo compared with last year’s price that even reached more that P24 a kilo.

After airing their grievances to Secretary Yap, the farmers said they were assured the government will not tolerate any NFA rice-diversion or black-market, practices in any part of the country, and the secretary has ordered the NFA to investigate the matter.

Meanwhile, Serafin Manalili, provincial manager of NFA I  Bulacan, confirmed in an interview with the BusinessMirror that they were already furnished by their central office with the complaint-letter of the farmers. He said cheap imported rice is flooding the market.

Manalili said he immediately ordered an investigation about the complaints of the farmers and sent a team to the Intercity Industrial Estate in Bocaue town, a major rice-trading center.

He said cheap imported rice being sold in the local market is the same rice being unloaded by the private sector authorized by the NFA to import rice.

The current wholesale price that these importers give wholesalers, Manalili said, is P1,380 per cavan for the 5-percent broken rice compared with the NFA’s P1,500; P1,220 for 15-percent broken rice against P1,300; and P1,100 for 100-percent broken rice that the NFA currently has no stock on hand.

Wholesalers, Manalili said, usually add a P30 markup per cavan in selling to retailers.

Manalili categorically told the BusinessMirror that there are no NFA rice-diversion activities or a black market in Bulacan, only a slowdown in rice-selling activities brought about by the flooding of cheap imported rice in the local market by authorized private-sector dealers.

Even the selling of NFA rice has been affected, Manalili explained, because the imported rice being unloaded by private traders is not only cheap but also of better quality.