Farmers’ group Samahang Industriya ng Magsasaka (Sinag) said subsidizing rice will enable President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. to make good on his promise to reduce the retail price of the staple to P20 per kilogram.
The group said, however, that strategies for pulling down the retail price of rice must not depress farmgate prices.
“We can lower the retail cost of the rice if we can introduce interventions that would lower the cost of producing palay, cut postharvest losses and remove non-productive players in the whole rice supply chain,” Sinag Executive Director Jayson Cainglet said.
The group noted that Kadiwa stores sell rice at a subsidized rate of P25 per kilo. Sans subsidy, retail prices of the staple range from P42 to P46 per kilo in other stores. The average farmgate price of rice has reached P23 per kilo.
“Farmers are encouraged to produce rice because prices are attractive this cropping season,” Cainglet said in the vernacular.
He also said importing huge quantities of rice to reduce retail prices would not be viable at this time as imports have become more expensive due to rising production costs as well as the weakening of the peso.
“So we hope the economic managers would not advise the President to push for more rice imports just to pull down prices,” he added.
