Farmers seek fair share of rice allocations

CITY OF MALOLOS, Philippines – Central Luzon farmers’ cooperatives are reiterating their call to the National Food Authority to provide them fair allocations from the rice importations that the country will procure.

Simeon Sioson, president of the Federation of Central Luzon Farmer’s Cooperative based in San Miguel town, told the STAR they were hoping the minimum access volume (MAV) rice importation for this year would be different from the rice allocations made in 2015.

Sioson said only 10 farmer cooperatives were allocated 12,500 metric tons while big-time traderswere given 176,000 MT under the 2015 MAV rice importation program.

In a letter sent to National Food administrator Jason Laurena Aquino dated June 12, 2017, Sioson identified the traders as Alchemo Philippines, Arvin International Mktg., and Philmico Foods Corp.

Sioson said they were wondering why their rice allocation was small, which accounted for 18 percent of the total rice importation volume compared to the 82 percent allocated to medium and big-time traders.

At that time, the processing fee imposed by NFA on rice importation was P50,000 regardless whether the importer has a small or big volume allocated to them.

“This is very unfair to the farmers,” Sioson said.

In 2012, the NFA Council implemented equal volume rice allocation among small and big-time traders but things changed the following year and the rice allocations suddenly favored big-time traders to the disadvantage of farmer-cooperatives.

The farmer-cooperatives in Central Luzon are not asking for extra favor from the NFA council, Sioson said.

“All we want is fair treatment in the equal volume of distribution of the rice importation program of the government,” he added.