“We are here today to prove that not everything during Valentines Day is expensive. We still have affordable commodities—especially rice.”
This is how Department of Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol opened the TienDA – Bigas ng Masa program at the DA central office in Quezon City on February 14, 2018.
Following the success of the TienDA, which was first launched on July 28, 2017 at the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI), DA, through the efforts of Agriculture Undersecretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat continued the establishment of similar outlets in key locations across the country.
The initiative aims to bring the farmers’ and fishers’ produce closer to the consumers, eliminate unnecessary layers of traders and middlemen that racks up the end costs of the products, and allow the food producers to earn big profit.
Piñol announced that the Bigas ng Masa will be a national program to be initially rolled out in DA’s regional field offices where outlets will be set up to sell rice to be supplied by local farmer-cooperatives.
“Our price of rice today is daylight robbery. Technically, rice should only be times two of the farm gate price of palay. We went out of our mandate which is solely on production and decided to set up this program to show that consumers have a choice and that our staple food should not be priced as high as they are today”. Piñol said.
At TienDA, quality rice supplied by different farmers groups from Central Luzon is being sold for as low as 38 pesos per kilo. Other rice varieties like black, red, brown, and other premium rice varieties are also offered. The recently launched Bigas-Mais or rice and corn blend will be also made availbale.
According to the agri chief, the increase in the price of commercial rice in many areas nationwide is a result of the manipulation of the rice traders to create an artificial shortage to jack up their prices.
Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data shows that palay harvest in 2017 reached 19.28 million metric tons which is an all time high record.
Today, the country is 96% rice sufficient and has 96 days buffer stock of rice,” Piñol said. ### (Carlos Cezar Baldosa, DA-AFID)
