Rampant smuggling stunts agri growth

The government’s lackluster efforts to combat smuggling have dragged down growth in the agricultural sector, which is already facing other challenges including El Niño and weak infrastructure.

The Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG) said the entry of contraband agricultural products remains a major problem, affecting the local farm industry and causing unfair competition.

The value of agricultural goods smuggled into the Philippines has jumped to nearly P200 billion under the Aquino administration mainly due to the onslaught of smugglers who are thriving on cheap imports from neighboring countries, Sinag said.

This is more than double the P94 billion worth of agricultural commodities that flooded the local market during the previous administration.

Smuggled milled rice represented about half of the value of agricultural products brought into the country illegally at P94 billion.

The value of smuggled pork and sugar, on the other hand, amounted to P40 billion and P25 billion, respectively.

SINAG, the umbrella group of farmers, agribusiness operators and party-list groups, placed the foregone revenue at around P60-80 billion.

Agricultural commodities are supposed to be protected and levied a higher tariff of up to 40 percent.

“Since day one of his administration, we have urged President Aquino to look into this smuggling pestilence. After five years and four Customs’ chief, there is no doubt that this administration has failed the agriculture sector in this regard,” SINAG chairman Rosendo So said.

The latest case of smuggling is the seizure of over a hundred containers of rice rice from Thailand amounting to P118 million.

SINAG has long been proposing that the National Food Authority should be the lone importer of rice. It also asked to reconsider the implementation of government-to-government (G2G) scheme as the only mode of importing rice.

“Though permits are supposedly allocated to farmer cooperatives, the reality is that these permits are being bought by unscrupulous traders,” So said.

According to SINAG, smuggling also exposes the country to unsafe and high risk agriculture and food products as smuggled goods do not pass quarantine and food safety inspection.

“Instead of taking care and helping the local agricultural industry which is the livelihood of millions of Filipinos, it seems that the government has no intention of addressing smuggling cases,” So said.

The agriculture sector employs about a third of the country’s workforce. -Louise Maureen Simeon, Philstar