‘Deregulation of agricultural goods dangerous’

MANILA, Philippines — The deregulation of more agricultural commodities will be dangerous not just to the local industry but to the entire country as well as it will make the Philippines more dependent on other countries for its needs.

“When you give up the role of government to give support or protection for the sector, that is dangerous and we will be even more dependent on other countries for our needs through importation,” United Broiler Raisers Association (UBRA) president Elias Jose Inciong said.

In a comment during the virtual farmers and fisherfolks congress, former agriculture undersecretary Fred Serrano said that based on the pronouncements and ‘body language’ of the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the country’s economic managers, he expects other major crops to be deregulated next to the rice sector.

The country’s rice industry was earlier liberalized and deregulated with the implementation of the Rice Tariffication Law (RTL), which eliminated the importation functions of the National Food Authority (NFA), leaving market players to freely operate.

Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) national manager Raul Montemayor said  farmers and consumers, who are the  supposed beneficiaries of the RTL, have not felt the benefits of the law as retail prices and farmgate prices have just returned to 2017 levels.

He said it is the importers and wholesalers or retailers who have benefited from higher margins as a result of the implementation of the law.

Montemayor said with the implementation of the RTL, the government has lost control of the market and has been unable to curb price manipulation, profiteering, and undervaluation of imports.

Apart from the deregulation of the rice industry, Serrano said he sees other commodities such as corn, hogs, sugar and fish to also follow suit.

Inciong said market power would be lost and would result in the concentration of the ability to buy to just a few companies, which is not healthy for the economy.

He said the government’s policies towards import liberalization are not working, saying that there’s been no development in the country’s agriculture and manufacturing sectors since it joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995.

He slammed the government, particularly the Department of Agriculture (DA) for not implementing various laws that will protect the local agriculture industry such as the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act of 1997 (AFMA) law and various laws on trade remedies.