Rice

by KARL R. OCAMPO, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Feb 22, 2019 Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol has assured the public that the National Food Authority (NFA) will still sell subsidized rice despite the passage of the Rice Import Liberalization Act.

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas & Cai U. Ordinario with a report by Butch Fernandez, BusinessMirror, Feb 21, 2019 THE rice liberalization law will take effect on March 5, but the government has not rolled out the new import rules that will guide traders, according to a senior official of the Department of Agriculture (DA).

Conversations about rice are a national conversation by Anna Gabriela A. Mogato, Rappler, Feb 13, 2019 MANILA, Philippines – It will be like domino tiles falling one after the other. While the rice tarrification bill will directly affect the rice industry, other businesses which make use of byproducts from rice will inevitably also feel its…

Philippines’ inflation problem’ by (Philstar.com), Decr 8, 2018 MANILA, Philippines — Lifting the more than two-decade-old caps on rice imports would not solve the Philippines’ inflation problem, Deutsche Bank said, adding that the country’s “overheating” economy must lose steam to “stably” tame stubbornly high prices.

by Louise Maureen Simeon with Evelyn Macairan(The Philippine Star), Sep 14, 2018 MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines is expected to import more rice next year as local production will not be enough to cover the demand for the country’s main staple, according to the latest report of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

By: Karl R. Ocampo – @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer, Aug 24, 2018 Rice prices rose to all-time highs four months after the rice stocks of the National Food Authority (NFA) ran out. Last year, consumers could buy regular-milled rice at an average of P37.89 a kilogram and well-milled rice at P41.93 a kilo.

By: Karl R. Ocampo – @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer, Aug 24, 2018 Rice prices rose to all-time highs four months after the rice stocks of the National Food Authority (NFA) ran out. Last year, consumers could buy regular-milled rice at an average of P37.89 a kilogram and well-milled rice at P41.93 a kilo.

by Yana Argarin, Aug 14, 2018, Manila Standard The government has unveiled a strategy on rice importation to tame consumer prices, after inflation rate hit a five-year high of 5.7 percent in July. Filipino farmers, however, feel left out.

by ABS-CBN News, Aug 2, 2018 MANILA — Taxing rice imports will help bring down the price of the staple grain by P7 to P8 per kilo, a lawmaker who is pushing for the tariff said Thursday.

by Rhodina Villanueva (The Philippine Star), Apr 10, 2018 MANILA, Philippines — The Duterte government’s decision to boost imports to solve the rice crisis will just threaten the country’s rice self-sufficiency, a group warned yesterday.

Read more here.

By: Ben O. de Vera, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Jul 13, 2017 Economic managers will ask President Duterte to certify as urgent a bill that will slap tariff on all rice imports to enable the country to finally do away with the quota system and avoid sanctions from the World Trade Organization (WTO).

by Ian Nicolas P. Cigaral, Businessworld, Jun 28, 2017 THE PHILIPPINES will no longer extend the temporary use of quantitative restrictions (QR) on rice which will expire by end-June, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said on Tuesday.

By: Ronnel W. Domingo, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Apr 18, 2017 The Philippine approach to rice production and supply management continues to expose the country to shortages and price spikes, as its agricultural policy remains unchanged over several administrations despite disastrous results, an economist said on Monday.

by Janina C. Lim, Businessworld, Apr 5, 2017 THE PHILIPPINES’ temporary use of quantitative restrictions (QR) on rice was intended to avert a dampening of rice prices, but the threat of their expiry has some parties casting about for possible alternative schemes that will support farmers once restrictions on imports are loosened.

By Louise Maureen Simeon (The Philippine Star), March 16, 2017 MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Agriculture (DA) has once again pushed back its rice self-sufficiency goal by another year to 2020 due to lack of available budget and as it buys more time to implement strategies to improve the sector.

By Czeriza Valencia (The Philippine Star), December 2, 2016 The study said opening the Philippine rice market to more imports would double the baseline importation level of 2.2. million tons to around 4.4 million tons in the succeeding years from the expiration of the QR in the middle part of 2017. This is because domestic…

By Leonardo Q. Montemayor, William D. Dar and Ruben D. Torres* The multi-billion-peso rice industry is a major source of employment, income and nutrition for Filipinos. It consists of some 2.5 million small farmers plus several hundred thousand farm laborers and others engaged in the supply of farm inputs and machinery, milling/processing, warehousing, transport, other…

MANILA, Philippines – The government wants to slowly wean rice farmers away from the price support provided by the National Food Authority (NFA), but no drastic changes to the subsidies provided by the state-run food agency would be immediately implemented, said Presidential Assistant for Food Security and Agricultural Modernization Francis Pangilinan yesterday.

MANILA – Traders, rice cartels and smugglers are easily the best people to blame for the spiking rice prices but a research fellow at the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) says the Aquino administration’s rice self-sufficiency program and import policy may be the culprit for these recent price increases.

Agriculture Sec. Proceso Alcala is one of Noynoy Aquino’s Cabinet favorites. That’s because, as the President likes, Alcala reports solutions, not problems. But the boss is in for a big letdown soon. That’s when he finds out that Alcala has created a looming rice crisis – for which there are no quick solutions.

Last week, I made the point that smuggling, corruption and protectionist policies are almost the same thing. Where one of these activities is prevalent, chances are it is because the other two elements are also there as partners in misconduct.

MANILA, Philippines – The country has only 18 days’ supply of rice from the National Food Authority (NFA) and even less stocks for commercial rice, according to a party-list lawmaker.

MANILA, Philippines – The government is projecting a rice importation range of zero to 100,000 metric tons in 2013 on expectations of better palay yield in the second half of the year. Next year, the government is also expected to lay down the ground work for rice exportation.

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Agriculture (DA) is optimistic that it will attain its rice sufficiency program goal for 2012 with the building of more irrigation systems across the country this year.

ALTHOUGH the Philippines was the world’s biggest rice importer in 2010, the country may no longer have to import rice next year as government officials are confident that rice sufficiency will be attained by the end of 2013.

The Agriculture Department will take appropriate measures and convene the National Food Authority council to address the demand of peasant groups to increase the food agency’s buying price of palay from P17 to P20 a kilo.

A farmer-turned lawmaker has asked the House committee on agriculture and food to conduct a full-blown congressional investigation in aid of legislation into the massive rice importation, irregularities and other anomalies in the trade which allegedly defrauded the government some P1 billion in taxes.

The Philippines may cut rice imports to about 100,000 tons in 2013, Agriculture Assistant Secretary Dante Delima told reporters Thursday.

It seems President Aquino is plucking economic policies out of the air as the National Food Authority (NFA) indicated the country will have to import an initial 500,000 metric tons (MT) of rice next year against Aquino’s claim before the recent Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum in Hawaii.