Farmers urge Duterte to look into palay price drop

MANILA, Philippines — Feeling neglected by the Department of Agriculture, farmers have raised their concern to President Duterte as palay (unhusked rice) prices continue to slide, leaving them with nothing to earn this harvest season.

In a letter sent to Malacanang, the Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (Sinag) is seeking the help of Duterte as farmers face low prices of palay at P11 per kilogram for wet and P14 a kilo for dry palay.

“The low prices of palay means that our farmers will not be able to recoup their farm expenses during this cropping period and may force them to stop planting palay for good,” Sinag chair Rosendo So said.

“Instead of recognizing these realities, Agriculture Secretary William Dar, unfortunately, chose to claim that palay prices are averaging P18 a kilo in Central Luzon and P19 in Cagayan Valley,” he said.

Palay prices should have been at P19 per kilo for the farmers to attain fair economic gains on their produce.

Because of the situation, Sinag has requested the President to direct the DA to allot P36 billion to subsidize the farmgate price of palay at P4 per kilo for the approximately nine million metric tons of palay to be harvested this season.

“This way, we can help both our rice farmers and the local milling industry,” said So.

“The rice milling industry is also on the verge of collapse. They cannot purchase the palay at the support price level of P17 a kilo given the deluge of imported rice that is flooding our local market,” he said.

Apart from the problems besetting the rice industry, Sinag also lamented the farmgate prices of corn which have plummeted to as low as P9 per kilo.

Under the Magna Carta of Small Farmers, there should be an automatic price support below P13.25 per kilo farmgate for local corn farmers.

Further, Sinag asked the DA to bring 30 percent of the live pig stocks from Visayas and Mindanao to Luzon to balance the supply as the country has yet to resolve the African swine fever (ASF).

The ASF has decreased local hog inventory which led to the increase of the retail prices of pork in the market.

“Our poultry industry is also facing a problem on low farmgate prices of chicken meat because of importation. A number of poultry farms have stopped operations, and many others are just unloading their stocks,” said So.

With the crises that the Philippines is experiencing right now, Sinag said the agriculture sector might soon be a thing of the past as rice farmers and other agricultural producers are unable to produce, threatening food security and loss of rural livelihoods.