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Farmers tell Villar: ‘Be sincere and repeal rice tarrification law’

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The country’s biggest peasants’ organization challenged Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food chairperson Senator Villar to act against her own rice tarrification law to prove sincerity in recent pro-farmers pronouncements.

Reacting to the senator’s directives at last Monday’s budget hearing to the Department of Agriculture to realign its 2023 proposed budget to help farmers produce high-quality seeds, the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said Villar should instead take a look at her pet rice importation liberalization law.

“Senator Villar can rather show her sincerity by supporting demands to review and repeal RA (Republic Act) 11203 or the rice tariffication law,” KMP chairperson Danilo Ramos said in a statement Wednesday.  

In last Monday’s hearing, Villar castigated DA for its preference for imported hybrid rice seeds over inbred and organic rice seeds, spending P7.9 billion for hybrid seeds distributed to 1.7 million farmers while only spending P3.7 billion for inbred seeds.

Villar also directed the agency to support the use of compost and organic fertilizer over expensive chemical-based fertilizers.

Fertilizer prices increased by up to 22% since 2020, severely affecting rice production and farmers’ incomes, the KMP said.

‘Hypocritical’

The group said that along with the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s Masagana 99 program, the Villar-sponsored rice liberalization program have further made rice farmers’ lives difficult.

“These two programs, implemented more than 40 years apart, have destroyed the lives and livelihood of rice farmers, and further ruined the local rice industry,” the group added.

KMP said hybrid rice propagation was the central component of Martial Law-era Masagana 99 that heavily relied on expensive imported seeds and farm inputs, which left farmers in debt.

“Up to this day, the majority of Filipino rice farmers remain dependent on the practices set by the Green Revolution and Masagana 99,” Ramos said.

Ramos added that the rice liberalization law that Villar principally authored and enacted in 2019 led to heavy income losses for rice farmers amounting to P206 billion in the past three years.  

“The failure of RA 11203 is undisputed, the influx of imported rice caused massive bankruptcies among rice farmers, due to depressed farm gate prices,” Ramos said. 

Legislators should support the genuine protection and development of the domestic rice industry. Senator Villar will remain hypocritical if she continues to support rice liberalization while espousing to advance local seeds and fertilizer production, Ramos said.

The KMP also challenged Villar to sponsor the Senate version of House Bill 405 Rice Industry Development Act or the Food Self-Sufficiency Act of 2022.

KMP said that an estimated 96% of Filipinos are rice consumers while production involves around 3.8 million rice farmers who cultivate 4.7 million hectares. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

‘Day of Defiance’ ng magsasaka sa Mendiola, naningil kay Duterte

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Pinangunahan ng Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas ang unang kilos protesta sa Mendiola simula ng pandemyang coronavirus bilang ‘Day of defiance’ sa Buwan ng Magsasaka noong Oktubre 21, 2020.

Isang ‘Hukumang Magbubukid’ ang kanilang isinagawa kung saan hinatulan nilang “guilty” si Duterte dahil sa anila’y kriminal na kapabayaan at pasismo. Kinondena nila ang Rice Tarrification Law at pagpaslang sa halos 300 mga magsasaka sa ilalim ng administrasyong Duterte. (Bidyo ni Joseph Cuevas/Kodao)

Kalagayan ng mga magsasaka dahil sa Rice Tariffication Law at panahon ng pandemya

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Inilahad ni Ariel ‘Ayik’ Casilao, Anakpawis vice chairman, ang kalagayan ng mga magsasaka sa panahon ng pandemya at perwisyo dulot ng Rice Tariffication Law.

Hiling ng mga magsasaka na ibasura ang Rice Tariffication Law dahil ito ang itinuturo nilang pasakit sa kanilang magsasaka at ang dahilan ng mababang presyo ng palay sa bansa.

Nueva Ecija NFA can only buy 4% of province’s rice harvest

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The National Food Authority (NFA) in Nueve Ecija can only buy four percent of the province’s expected rice harvest of 21 million sacks this main cropping season, its provincial manager said.

In an interview with local radio station Radyo Natin-Guimba last Friday, NFA provincial manager Genoveva Villar said they are ready to buy 900,000 sacks of palay (unhusked rice) from the province’s rice farmers at P17.00 per kilo.

Villar said further instructions have yet to reach their office after President Rodrigo Duterte ordered that the NFA buy all palay from farmers following widespread complaints that the crop is being bought at only P7 per kilo due to the influx of cheap rice imports.

Palay was bought by traders at P21 per kilo prior to the impmentation of the Duterte government’s rice tarrification law.

The NFA in the province is willing to follow the president’s instructions if funds are made available, Villar said.

Villar added that if farmers would be qualified for added incentatives if their palay is fully dried.

Radyo Natin-Guimba reported, however, that farmers said this is a difficult precondition as the rainy season has already arrived and there are shortages of drying facilities in the province.

Villar also admitted that its warehouses are currently full of both imported and local rice, which she said is in accordance with the government’s buffer stock policy.

She suggested that the government may rent additional warehouses.

Radyo Natin-Guimba also reported that the NFA’s national budget of P7 billion is only enough to buy nine million sacks, which is not even half of Nueva Ecija’s projected harvest of 21 million sacks.

Nueva Ecija is one of the country’s top rice producing provinces. It current cropping is expected to be harvested in October. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)