Bicol farmers seek support amid looming rice crisis
LEGAZPI CITY—Several farmers advocacy groups have urged the government to raise the palay support price and strengthen the National Food Authority (NFA), warning that plunging farm-gate prices and rising production costs could push the country into a deeper rice crisis.
In a press briefing here on Thursday, the Integrated Rural Development Foundation (IRDF) said farmers are now forced to sell palay (unhusked rice) at P12 to P15 per kilo, well below the P17 to P20 production cost, even as consumers continue to pay high prices for rice.
Reeling from typhoons
Prof. Teodoro Mendoza, a University of the Philippines Los Baños food policy expert, said the situation reflected the “deep structural failures” triggered by unregulated imports and weakened state institutions.
He said the Rice Tariffication Law has “devastated” local rice farmers and warned that at the current pace, “there will be only a few farmers left to grow rice” in the next decade.
Farmer leaders from Sorsogon and Albay said many of them have yet to recover from recent typhoons and that even those who managed to harvest could not sell to traders or to the NFA, whose warehouses were reportedly filled with stocks bought from private traders.
IRDF executive director Arze Glipo said farmers were calling for a P22 to P25 per kilo support price to prevent more producers from leaving rice farming.
The group also pressed for the restoration of the NFA’s price-stabilization and buffer-stocking mandate, saying it must be able to buy at least 20 percent of national palay output and be backed by a P200-billion budget to curb market manipulation.
The group further called for amending the Rice Tariffication Law, granting debt relief to farmers, providing climate-resilient livelihood support and establishing a participatory food governance system involving farmers, consumers, experts, women and local governments.
With the Philippines importing up to 30 percent of its rice requirements, IRDF warned that more farmers dropping out of production due to low income and climate impacts poses a serious threat to food security.
“The stakes could not be higher,” the group said, urging President Marcos and the Congress to act.
They added: “A nation that secures its rice supply secures its future.”
