NFA’s plan to import more rice opposed

The government's plan to import more rice at the latter part of the year will just further hurt local farmers who are expecting to harvest their year-end yields.

This was according to Herculano “Joji” Co, president of the Philippine Confederation of Grains Association, who first couldn't believe that the National Food Authority (NFA) is still pushing for more importation this year.

"Ewan ko kung magagawa yan [I don't know if they can do it]. If you do it last quarter, for what? Aani na [it's already harvest season]," Co said in an interview.

The NFA has particularly proposed to import additional 500,000 metric (MT) of rice for this year, and another 500,000 MT of rice for the first few months of 2019.

If things will happen according to NFA's plan, the total amount of imported rice that have entered and are set to enter the country would already stand to as much as 2.4 million MT.

This includes the 500,000 MT of rice imported through the Minimum Access Volume (MAV) scheme of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in February, which was followed by another 250,000 MT for its second tranche; 500,000 MT of rice imported through the NFA-led governmentto-government and government-toprivate bidding; and the first phase of the latest MAV importation, which stood around 653,000 MT.

Co is now questioning the purpose of another importation when imported rice already started flooding the local market.

"Is that to avoid depleting of stocks? The purpose of importation is food security and stabilize the prices. By December, local harvest is expected to increase because those areas not usually covered by irrigation have been supposedly rainfed already," Co said.

For his part, Samahang Industriya sa Agrikultura (SINAG) Chair Rosendo So said that instead of pushing for more importation of agriculture commodities, the government must support efforts of the local agriculture industry to improve local productiona and reduce retail prices of basic commodities.

"Farmgate prices have remained constant, despite rising prices of our cost of production the past months. Why are we now being penalized with the proposal of zero tariff for meat and other agriculture products," SINAG Chair Rosendo So said, referring to an earlier proposal for the govern- ment to cut the tariff for meat and fish imports.

SINAG added the government has been pushing programs to raise revenues and now they want to forego revenues in the guise of lowering inflation.

"Reducing tariffs to zero percent will annihilate the agriculture sector with the expected dumping of cheaper agricultural imports," So further said.