PRESIDENT Rodrigo R. Duterte signed last week into law the Rice Tariffication Bill, which he certified as urgent when filed in Congress in October last year. This will now remove import restrictions on rice “for the greater good”, according to Malacañang.
We are wondering if the measure had the full support of the Department of Agriculture (DA) because this will open the country to a free flow of imported rice.
From statements of the DA on Wednesday last week, with the new law, they said Filipino farmers would need immediate help to improve productivity to compete with the imported cereal. Agricultural secretary Manny Piñol himself expressed concern that without the “intervention” local farmers cannot expect to compete with cheaper imports.
Rice tariffication removes tariff barriers for imported rice and will allow the free flow of the staple into the Philippine market. Rowena del Rosario-Sadecon of the Philippine Rice Industry Stakeholders Movement said that the measure would create “chaos”.
We are taking up this issue in our column because Western Visayas as a major rice producer will be adversely affected by the new law. According to Secrotary Piñol, our country plans to raise our rice production to 20 million metric tons this year, compared to 19.6 million last year. With a very competitive market because of the imported rice stock, will rice farming be still be viable as a livelihood?
Imposing tariff on local rice does not appear to have the full support of our farmers and the DA itself. But why was the law passed? Why do we heed the advice of politicians instead of listening to our farmers?
We have written a column on Feb. 11 last year with the title “PH should learn from India’s rice program”. India is the second biggest country in the world with a population of 1.339 billion in 2017, next to China’s 1.410 billion. The Philippines ranked 13th in world population as of 2017 with 104.92 million people.
One thing we have in common with China and India is that we are also a rice-eating country like them. It is interesting to note that with its big population, India was able to increase its rice production and became self-sufficient in the cereal by simply adopting a program of paying their farmers twice the market price of their produce at harvest time.
Under the circumstances, with the expansion of a fast-growing city like Iloilo, although a rice-producing area, we are afraid that farm owners might be attracted to converting their land for residential, commercial or industrial purposes rather than lose money in rice production.
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Historical Quote of the Week
“The biggest public schools division in the country is the Division of Iloilo.” (For comments or re-actions, please e-mail to jnoveracompany@yahoo.com)/PN
