Luzon millers pledge to bring down rice prices to P33-P35/kilo

Luzon-based rice millers have committed to help the government bring down retail prices to rice to a range of P33 to P35 a kilo to calm the current inflationary pressures and ease the plight of consumers staggering from steep food costs and non-stop increase in fuel prices.

Over 60 millers and retailers led by Herculano Co, president of the Philippine Confederation of Grains Associations (Philcongrains) gave this assurance Wednesday to Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap during a dialogue held at the DA’s Bureau of Soil and Water Management (BWSM) in Quezon City.

The commitment was given to Yap and National Food Authority administrator Jessup Navarro during a two-hour dialogue, although some rice millers told The STAR that they were unhappy with the pressure as the cost of rice has really gone up.

The DA is insisting that given sufficient inventories as a result of the bumper summer harvests and imports from Vietnam totaling 600,000 metric tons (MT), the NFA has substantially increased its injections of subsidized rice at P18.25 per kilo for poor consumers as well as commercial varieties at P25 a kilo and fancy varieties at P35 a kilo.  

As suggested by Yap, the initial focus of efforts to keep rice prices ranging from P33 to P35 per kilo would be in major palay-producing provinces in Luzon like Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan and Isabela.

Prices of commercial rice shot up to beyond P40 a kilo in certain areas last summer.

Rice prices have shot up in recent months due to external shocks like declining global production brought about by climate change, ballooning food demand from fast-growing economies like China and India, market speculation, and the rocketing prices of petroleum products that have jacked up everything from the cost of chemical fertilizers for crop production to the transport of foodstuff from farms to urban markets.