...As DA orders import ban for farmer coops

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture is mulling to ban farmer cooperatives from importing rice as they are just being used as dummies of big traders.

In a Senate hearing yesterday, Agriculture Secretary William Dar said he would issue an order that will prohibit coops and farmer associations from applying import permits.

“We are considering banning the coops from importing. We will issue an order,” Dar said.

Amid a liberalized rice regime, big traders and importers are using small coops as front or dummies to import rice due to tax exemptions as stipulated by the Rice Tariffication Law.

Unscrupulous traders have long been proliferating but their presence was further felt last year when the country opened the industry to cheap rice imports to bring down prices.

The DA has already admitted the existence of dummy importers who do not have the capital to pay for the import volume they have indicated in their import application.

Sen. Cynthia Villar, chair of the Senate committee on agriculture and food, said this has already been done before not just with rice but other commodities as well.

“The coops are being used by traders. They don’t know the implications. Some members were even jailed because the importers already ran away,” Villar said.

Even Sen. Francis Pangilinan said some coops have agreed to be used by traders as dummies because they were getting a good sum of money as payment.

“We need to divert them from importation, we need to bring them and tie them up with LGUs where they can sell their produce at the right price,” he said.