Release seeds, machinery to farmers now, govt told

Credit to Author: EIREENE JAIREE GOMEZ| Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2019 16:19:28 +0000

To aid farmers reeling from plummeting rice prices, the Department of Agriculture (DA) should immediately release much needed seeds, farm machinery and equipment to all regions, a group said.

The Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (Sinag) said such move would be very necessary as the next planting season starts in September.

The average farmgate price of palay (unhusked rice) continued its downtrend since October last year. It has reached to as low as P14 per kilo to P12 per kilo in some provinces in the country.
As of last week of June, palay price at national level dropped by 16.4 percent to P17.88 per kilo from from last year’s P21.39 per kilo, latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed.

Sinag President Rosendo So said the DA, amid the change in leadership, should fasttrack the release of nationwide government support to farmers using the P10-billion Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) as mandated by Republic Act 11203 or the Rice Tariffication Law.

“[W]e have P5 billion [for] seeds and P3 billion [for] farm machinery and equipment from rice competitiveness enhancement fund for this year, but we hope LandBank can be very active in funding farmers for this year since we can not have additional fund for the year,” So said.

The Rice Import Liberalization Act removed restraints on the importation, export and trading of rice. Restraints on imports were replaced by tariffs.

Since the passage of RA 11203, there has been a 422-percent increase in the volume of rice imported by the Philippines, based on data from the Bureau of Customs. But the farmers said the unlimited importation of rice has led to the very low prices of local palay, which could result in an estimated P114 billion in losses for the whole year.

RA 11203 mandates that the agriculture department through the Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization (PHilMech) will provide farmers with machinery and equipment worth P5 billion, free high-yielding seeds worth P3 billion from the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), P1 billion for credit and P1 billion in training through the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI).

In his fourth State of the Nation Address on Monday, President Duterte threatened to shut down state-run Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) if it could not fulfill its mandate to help farmers.
“What the heck is wrong with you? You are supposed to finance agricultural enterprises and endeavors… It’s called Land Bank. Primarily, it was a bank intended to serve people who are connected with lands, whether owners or tenants,” Duterte said.

He gave LBP until the end of July to submit to him a plan that will help farmers.

“You better decide on that, I will give you until the end of July to give me a plan or else, I will ask Congress to reconfigure you,” Duterte said.

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