Agriculture Secretary Francisco P. Tiu Laurel, Jr. is looking at a one-year trial period for the P29 rice program to gather sufficient data and insights to devise a strategy to keep the cost of the food staple down for a larger number of Filipinos while sustaining farmers’ income.
“This program is a targeted intervention. It’s a large-scale trial to determine if we can sell rice at these low levels for an extended period with government subsidy. We will assess the data comprehensively, back track to the farm level and determine what needs to be done to make this program sustainable,” said the DA chief.
“This large-scale trial will gather data from farm to retail that’s why this cannot be done in a month, or two months. This will be one-year program so we can review the entire chain—from buying seeds, planting them, utilizing fertilizer, sourcing fertilizer, harvesting, warehousing, up to the retailing stage—and determine where we could save on costs to lower prices to consumers,” he added.
As currently crafted, the program is intended to sell good quality rice at P29 a kilo to disadvantaged sectors such as indigents, senior citizens, persons with disabilities, solo parents and indigenous people. In all, these vulnerable sectors are estimated to total 6.9 million households or around 34 million Filipinos.
The program sells rice purchased by the Food Terminal, Inc., a government corporation under the DA, from the inventory of aging stocks of the National Food Authority and made available to disadvantaged sectors through the KADIWA centers relaunched by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Each beneficiary could buy 10 kilos of rice per month from KADIWA centers at a subsidized price.
Aside from NFA stocks, the DA is also looking at rice supply from the contract-growing arrangement entered into by the National Irrigation Administration with farmers and, if needed, through importation by FTI and other DA controlled corporations to support the P29 program.
Sec. Tiu Laurel plans to lower the selling price if the cost of the grain softens further as indicated by world market trends, with the expected lifting by India of its export ban on non-basmati rice and production in exporting countries such as Vietnam and Thailand improves with the end of El Nino.
Aside from the P29 rice program, the DA is also pushing the Rice-for-All initiative where private traders invited to sell their stocks of well-milled and fancy rice in KADIWA centers at prices lower than those prevailing in the market.
The large-scale trial of the P29 program was launched earlier this month, with an initial 10 KADIWA centers in Metro Manila and Bulacan selling the subsidized rice on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
Sec. Tiu Laurel said the program will be expanded to cover areas outside Luzon by August or September, and ideally to all the 1,500 municipalities of the country. ### (Photo by DA-AFID)
