The Federation of Free Farmers called out the Department of Agriculture for reportedly misleading the people by saying that retail prices of well-milled rice have dropped by P7 per kilo, which was untrue because it was the price for regular-milled rice based on data of the Philippine Statistics Authority.
THE claim by the agriculture department that prices of rice have fallen because of the Rice Tariffication Law and the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Program was disputed by farmers’ groups saying the P7 per kilo price drop is not for well-milled imported rice but for cheaper regular milled local rice.
Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that the average price for well milled rice from 2019 to September 2021 was P42.26 and not P38 per kilo as claimed by DA.
Dar’s claims
Agriculture Secretary William Dar has claimed that the price of well milled dropped by P7 per kilo to P38 from P45 per kilo recorded in 2018, citing the effects of RTL and RCEF, a component of the law which is funded from rice tariff.
Raul Montemayor of the Federation of Free Farmers said the government’s assertion that rice prices have fallen since imports were liberalized would not hold true if current prices were compared to prices in 2017.
Montemayor stated that “the DA is hiding the fact that rice prices after the RTL (Rice Tariffication Law) enactment were actually the same or slightly higher than prices in 2017, which was a more normal year.
Official data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) show that RTL has actually been a flop in terms of lowering rice prices, particularly for poor consumers,” Montemayor added.
Quota-free imports
Republic Act No. 11203 or RTL took effect in March 2019 allowing the private sector to import rice more freely, with their shipments subject to a tariff of 35 percent on Southeast Asian grain. Such tariffs provide the RCEF with P10 billion a year to support projects to improve farming efficiency.
“By the end of the six-year implementation of the law, we shall be near the P8/kg production cost target,” Dar said.
Montemayor disagreed: “The P38/kg price is actually for cheaper regular milled rice. PSA data show that the average price for well-milled rice from 2019 to September 2021 was actually P42.26/kg, or just P2.74/kg below the P45 level in 2018,” Business World reported.
Misleading
Montemayor called the DA’s data on the cost of production “misleading.”
“PSA data show that average cost of palay production was actually lower at P11.05/kg in 2016-2017. This went up to P11.45/kg when Dar took over the DA in 2019, and further deteriorated to P11.52/kg in 2020, despite the billions poured into RCEF programs,” Montemayor countered.
“While palay (unmilled rice) output reportedly grew by almost 7 percent in the third quarter of the year, the increase was exclusively due to the expansion of harvested area.
Average yields declined to 4.11 metric tons (MT) per hectare in the third quarter compared to 4.13 MT during the same period in 2020, putting into question the effectiveness of the DA’s strategy of raising yields by giving free certified seeds to farmers,” he added.
The DA’s production target is 20.4 million MT of palay in 2021, against the 19.4 million MT logged in 2020.
Tags: #DA, #FFF, #riceprices, #misleading, #agriculture, #SecDar