‘Lack of foresight caused rice price spike’

A former administrator of the National Food Authority (NFA) blamed yesterday the rise in prices of rice to the late purchase of the staple intended for the lean months.

As this developed, coconut farmers said buying prices of copra and coconut nationwide have plunged by almost 82 percent since last month – making it hard for them to cope with rising prices of goods and services.

“For me I think it (purchase of rice by the government) is very late,” Renan Dalisay, who headed the NFA during the Aquino administration, said in an interview with BISErbisyong Leni on dzXL, a weekly program co-hosted by Vice President Leni Robredo.

Dalisay said the “timing” of the purchase of rice is important and that the government should have bought rice for the lean months while the price was not that high.

“During our time, we ordered early and we asked them (countries where the Philippines import rice) to deliver once needed,” Dalisay said.

He noted that the NFA should have a buffer stock of rice of at least 30 days during the lean months.

Citing reports, Dalisay said it even went to one-day buffer stock last month.

“So, we will really have a problem because the major function of the NFA is to stabilize the price. If the prices of rice increase, the NFA should offer it at cheaper price. But if we don’t have rice to match that, the rise in prices won’t stop,” he said.

Countries where the Philippines imports rice such as Vietnam and Thailand must also not get the idea that the country faces shortage of the staple so they would not increase prices, Dalisay pointed out.

Dalisay said during the Aquino administration, the NFA was able to stabilize the prices of rice not just during the lean months but also during calamities, such as when an El Niño phenomenon struck the country.

Last week, House appropriations committee chair Davao Rep. Karlo Nograles urged the NFA to look into the possibility of “price manipulation” by rice traders in Mindanao.

The prices of rice in Zamboanga City have soared to P50 to P70 per kilo due to shortage of the staple there, Nograles said.

Gov’t help sought

The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said coconut farmers are demanding the government to address the very low buying prices of copra and coconut across the country.

“The rising prices of rice, transportation and food are hurting small coconut farmers even more,” the KMP and the claimants group Coco Levy Fund Ibalik sa Amin said in a statement.

The two groups noted that “current average farm-gate prices published by the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) are at P20.89 a kilo but prevailing copra prices are pegged at P14 to P18 per kilo compared to P38 per kilo of copra in the same period last year. Actual current copra prices are even lower in many areas.”

They said that during a recent national consultation of small coconut farmers, “it was revealed that the July prices of copra in Quezon province nosedived to as low as P4 per kilo. Other provinces also registered low copra prices ranging from P14, P16 and P18 in Eastern Visayas, Bicol and Caraga regions, respectively.”

“The very low prices of copra are made even worse by ‘resicada’ and ‘resiko’ or moisture content weight deducted by traders from copra. Resicada deduction ranges from one to two kilos per sack of copra,” the statement said.