“I am afraid in the next few weeks actually that the price of paddy rice or palay of the farmers [would go down],” Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said in his speech at the Asean Agriculture Summit 2018 on October 1.
“[The farm-gate price of palay] has gone down from as high as P25 [per kg] to about P17 [per kg],” Piñol added.
In a separate interview with reporters after his speech, Piñol clarified that the P17 per kg buying price of palay was reported in North Cotabato.
Piñol said he received the report from Philippine Rice Research Institute Executive Director Sailila Abdula.
“There are also other reports, which I have to validate, that the farm-gate price of palay [in other areas] have started to decline,” he said.
“[This is caused by] the arrival of rice imports and, No. 2, we are starting to harvest. This is what I fear actually, that when the two things happen together, the price of palay would fall,” he added.
Piñol said he expects the average of buying price of palay in the following months to settle between P18 and P20 per kilogram, from the present range of P23 to P25 per kilogram.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes