Saving Rice Farmers! Taraka Contract-Growing Scheme Could Industrialize Rice Farming

In a small town of Taraka in Lanao del Sur, the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) is introducing a new concept in rice farming similar to the “Contract-Growing” scheme of many agricultural corporations operating in Mindanao.

The scheme is very simple.

The Local Government Unit of Taraka is building six units of Solar-Powered Irrigation System (SPIS) which is expected to provide water to about 700-hectares of rich farmlands allowing farmers to plant at least twice a year.

The farmers whose areas will be covered by the SPIS will be “contracted” to plant at least two varieties of premium hybrid seeds, follow a set production protocol and assured of a buying price of P18 per kilo at farm gate.

They will be provided with seeds and farm inputs, including the services of farm equipment, all under a “Plant-Now-Pay-Later” program to be managed by the Municipal Economic Enterprise Development Office (MEEDO).

At harvest, the MEEDO picks up the farmers’ produce, pays him the “contracted price” of P18 per kilo at farm gate and then brings the produce to a modern rice processing and storage facility where this will be dried, milled and packed to be sold locally as “Taraka Halal Premium Rice” whose quality could compete with the shiny and long-grain imported rice from Vietnam and Thailand.

While the appearance and eating quality could compete with the imported premium rice, the “Taraka Halal Premium Rice” could be sold much lower than those coming from Vietnam or Thailand which are now priced between P50 to P60 in the market.

By implementing this scheme, Taraka’s rice farmers are assured of a stable price for their produce while the municipality and the neighboring towns are assured of premium rice supply while at the same time creating an economic activity which would assure local people of jobs and income opportunities.

The “Taraka Template” on the industrialization of rice farming could be the key to the survival of the Filipino rice farmers who are now badly battered by the very low farm gate prices because of the flooding of imported rice.

Replicated nationwide, the “Taraka Template” for Rice Industrialization could result in a strong Philippine rice farming sector where farmers will produce more because their hard work and efforts are fairly rewarded.

The key to the success of this template, however, is government support and intervention to boost the sector which assures our people with sufficient food.

The idea that the production, processing, distribution and marketing of rice, our country’s staple food, should just be left to the private sector and subject to an open market policy, is totally wrong.

While the governments of Vietnam, Thailand and other rice exporting countries invested heavily in their rice industry by establishing modern processing facilities complete with grains color-sorters, our farmers still use “traveling rice mills.”

To make our rice farmers competitive, government must invest in ultra-modern rice processing complex, complete with storage silos, in major rice production areas of the country and implement the “Contract-Growing” Scheme for rice farmers to assure them of stable pricing.

Most of all, our government’s economic managers must humbly and honestly admit that while the Rice Tariffication Law was built on the noble intent of providing low-priced rice in the market and a supposedly competitive local rice industry, it was one of the most grievous blunders and injustice committed against the Filipino farmers.

#GovernanceIsCommonSense!

#FarmIsTheBestClassroom!

(This video material was prepared by the media team of the Mindanao Development Authority using footages taken in Taraka, Lanao del Sur.)