President Rody Duterte today approved the creation of a task group which will conduct an actual rice stock inventory in the country and establish an accurate baseline information on the country’s rice supply.
In a meeting in Malacañang today, President Duterte said Task Force Bigas should be led by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and supported by other agencies like the Bureau of Customs, Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Philippine Statistics Office.
A Memorandum Order is expected to be signed by Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea to operationalize Task Force Bigas.
The Task Force is also expected to avert any attempt to hoard rice and create an artificial shortage following the announcement made by Pres. Duterte that no rice importation should be made during peak harvest season.
The new policy declared by the President is aimed at protecting Filipino rice farmers from price manipulation.
Historically, paddy rice buying prices would fall from a high of P18 per kilo during off harvest season to only about P10 to P12 per kilo during peak harvest, a result of the in-shipment of imported rice.
Rice trading in the Philippines has largely been controlled by big businessmen who own rice mills and warehouses. These are also the same businessmen who, using farmers’ cooperatives as dummies, take advantage of the country’s rice importation program by cornering import permits and timing the arrival of the imports during peak harvest season.
The President’s announcement of the No-Importation-on-Harvest-Season Policy was welcomed by rice farmers all over the country but was resented by the rice cartel who immediately launched an orchestrated Public Relations campaign against the policy, including floating the story that the move could result in a rice shortage in the country.
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) Economic Analyst Dr. Samarendu Mohanty said that the Philippines has an inventory of about 5-million metric tons of rice and a buffer stock supply good for 46 days.
Dr. Mohanty also said that the export price of rice in the world market today has fallen to very economically affordable prices partly because of the announcement by President Duterte that the Philippines will not import rice during the harvest season and also because harvest in the rice producing countries has been good.
The Task Force will conduct a nation-wide inventory of all rice stocks, including those which entered the country through the backdoor by a well-organised rice smuggling syndicate which receives the rice from other countries in the waters off Malaysia and transferred to small boats which bring the stocks to Zamboanga City and other small ports in the Peninsula.
Grains warehouses are proposed to be opened and inspected in the process.
(Photos by Romirose Boloron Padin)
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