Safeguards against rice imports urged anew
Credit to Author: Eireene Jairee Gomez| Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2019 16:54:22 +0000
THE Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) on Thursday reiterated its position that putting in place safeguard measures on imported rice is the way to go to aid farmers who have been suffering from the continued drop in the prices of their produce.
In a statement, FFF National Manager Raul Montemayor explained that the imposition of safeguard measures is the “most effective, World Trade Organization (WTO)-legal, and transparent way” to address the influx of rice imports and arrest the drop in palay (unmilled rice) prices.
Under the rules of the WTO and Republic Act 8800, or the “Safeguard Measures Act,” general safeguard duties may be temporarily imposed on imports of rice, on top of regular tariffs, if there is a surge in imports that harms, or threatens to harm, the local rice industry.
While the Department of Agriculture (DA) earlier initiated an investigation to determine whether safeguard measures were warranted, the agency shortly terminated its own investigation and deferred the matter to the Economic Development Cluster (EDC) of the Cabinet.
At the same time, Agriculture Secretary William Dar announced the government decided to provide P3 billion worth of cash assistance to rice farmers before the year ends instead, which will be at a rate of P5,000 for each farmer.
The FFF, however, warned the provision of cheap loans, cash assistance and procurement support to affected rice farmers will not be effective unless the safeguard measures are put in place at the same time.
“How can farmers pay back the loans if the price of their produce keeps falling and their losses continue to pile up. The P5,000 cash assistance is very small compared to their losses, and will just be eaten up by more losses if palay prices continue to go down,” Montemayor said.
Scrapping the safeguard measures, he further said, will put even more pressure on the National Food Authority and local governments to buy palay from farmers at higher-than-market rates.
“In the end, they will be forced to sell their stocks at a huge loss. So, the billions of pesos going into these programs will just be wasted,” Montemayor added.