President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday ordered the National Food Authority to buy all the rice harvest of local farmers following the steep drop of palay prices.
“We are not wasting money. We are making sure our industry does not go to waste,” President Duterte said.
“Don’t mind if we face bankruptcy. We collect taxes to help people,” he added.
Duterte’s directive came amid reports that farmgate prices of palay dropped to as low as P7 to P11 in some provinces.
Agriculture Secretary William Dar said some millers and traders are using the implementation of the Rice Tarrification law, which eased policies on rice imports, as an excuse to hoard.
“Even before the inaction of the Rice Tariffication law, isn’t it the palay prices have dropped? So, there are those who abuse it and we see to it that we will apply the full force of the law,” he told Palace reporters.
The Department of Agriculture and the Department of Trade and Industry will inspect rice warehouses to ensure that traders and millers are “not managing” the harvest, he said.
House Committee on Ways and Means chairman Joey Salceda reminded the government there are available measures that could be used to protect farmers from the plummeting prices of palay.
Salceda said the government could invoke Republic Act No. 8800 or the Safeguards Law to impose 30 to 80-percent tariff on imported rice outside the Minimum Access Volume of 350,000 metric tons amid the apparent “surge of rice imports and injury to domestic industry.”
