Sec. Piñol: Rice supply sufficient

ILOILO CITY — On the heels of the rising prices of commercial rice, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel “Manny” Piñol declared Thursday that the country has enough supply of the staple.

Piñol made the statement following reports of the National Food Authority (NFA) that its inventory was running low. "We have sufficient supply of rice," he said. "In fact, never in the history of this country that we had so much harvest just like last year."

Records showed that farmers produced 19.28 million metric tons (MT) of palay in 2017. The data is an additional 1.65 million MT from the previous year's 17.63 million MT. "Coming into the first quarter 2018, our buffer stock is at 2.7 million MT which makes us rice sufficient for this quarter," said the secretary.

Piñol said there was a misinterpretation of what the NFA earlier said. "When the NFA said there was rice shortage, it was referring to the buffer stock," he said. NFA as a government agency—tasked to stabilize the price in the market—is supposed to have a buffer stock that it could use in surgical operations, he explained.

As an example, if the price of rice is being manipulated in Iloilo, NFA could come in and deliver rice at P27 per kilo in the market to stabilize the price. "Now at the end of this first quarter, we expect our buffer stocks to stand at about 3 million MT. That's about 96-day supply," he added.

Piñol said that based on the rice sufficiency rate on a quarterly basis, "we are rice sufficient as of the moment. But the problem is the lean months when there is a deficit supply "that's why we need around 400,000 nga import every year."

Piñol said he sees no wrong with importation, for as long as it is not done during harvest season. Right now, he said the problem is how to tell the people that "we have enough rice if they don't fell it in the context of affordable prices in the market? Our claim would always be disputed. What is the problem?"

Consumers could not feel it because rice price still stands at P50 to P60 per kilo, he said, tracing the problem not on the supply but the supply system from farm to the market. He said palay is bought from farmers at P12 to P19 per kilo but rice at the market is sold at around P50 a kilo.

"Somebody is surely making money and somebody is being hurt and definitely those are the consumers," he said, attributing also the problem between farm to the market on layers and tiers of middlemen and traders who make money themselves, along the way.

Piñol also hit greedy rice traders for faking the shortage of rice to justify the increase in the market. As such, he said their advocacy is to organize and federate the farmer just like what was done in South Korea.

On Thursday, Piñol, together with President Rodrigo Duterte, attended the launching of TienDA in Iloilo, a marketing scheme that allows farmers and fisherfolks to sell their goods directly to the consumers, in military camps nationwide.

For Western Visayas, the third TienDA, dubbed as TienDA Sa Mga Bayani, was established at Camp Adriano Hernandez in Dingle, Iloilo.