DAVAO CITY—The government will come up with a new buying price for rice after the midterm elections in May, but Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said the National Food Authority’s (NFA) procurement scheme will likely be favorable to farmers.
Under the rice trade liberalization law, or Republic Act 11203, the NFA must buy unhusked rice from farmers for its buffer stock. The food agency may stockpile rice equivalent to at least 15 days of national consumption.
“The buying price would be the same, or may be higher or lower, but likely [favorable] for farmers as President Duterte often prioritizes the needs of marginalized sectors, like farmers,” Piñol said in an interview with the BusinessMirror over the weekend. The rice trade liberalization law removed the power of the NFA to regulate the rice market. But the NFA Council decided on March 6 to allow the food agency to sell its old stocks and rice in excess of its 30-day stockpile.
The NFA buys rice from individual farmers at P20.40 per kilogram, and P20.70 per kg from cooperatives. Prior to the implementation of Republic Act 11203, rice sold by the NFA at P27 per kg consisted of imports and those bought from local farmers.
Meanwhile, the DA has committed to extend P200 million in production loans to agrarian-reform beneficiaries (ARBs) following the release of their certificates of land ownership last Friday.
The Department of Agrarian Reform also distributed a free dump truck each to nine ARB organizations. The DAR spent P3.6 million for the nine trucks.
Land titles covering 4,525 hectares were given to a total of 2,095 ARBs in the Davao region.
The government also urged the beneficiaries to tap shared facilities and equipment such as cultivators and power tillers, threshers, hand tractors, light-duty shredders, four-wheel-drive tractors with disc plow, mounted trailing disc harrow and one-ton trailer, flatbed dryers.