ROSALES—A diversionary tactic.

This was how the Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG) described the recent increase in the retail prices of rice, pointing to rice smugglers and unscrupulous traders as those behind the scheme.

SINAG chair Rosendo So, also the congressional representative of the Abono partylist, said the farm gate prices of palay (unmilled rice) have remained around P23 per kilo for the past three months and there is no reason for any increase in the market price.

“We are squarely blaming the rice smugglers in cahoots with a few unscrupulous rice wholesalers who are consciously diverting our attention away from rice smuggling by enraging the rice consuming public on this new rice price spikes,” So said.

Herculano Co, one of the leaders of SINAG, said that rice prices should actually be going down at this time since farmers will start harvesting their crops by the first week of March.

“The warehouses of rice millers and traders are now practically empty since we have released our stocks long ago and we are now preparing for the coming harvest season,” Co added.

SINAG said that smugglers are dumping the smuggled rice still in their possession in the local market at this time when local rice farmers are waiting to harvest within the next two weeks.

“For the past weeks, they have been feeding misinformation and have used former government officials and pro-liberalization academics to mouth the shameful rhetoric that it is better for us to simply import cheaper rice from Vietnam and Thailand than to support our local rice industry,” So said.

SINAG asserts that local rice farmers are more efficient and competitive “but without government support on farm inputs, credit and insurance, seed certification, irrigation and post-harvest (dryers, warehouses) facilities, it is impossible to compete with the heavily subsidized rice industry of our neighboring countries”.

So noted that there are still about 350,000 hectares available areas in the country to expand rice production which if provided with irrigation can contribute to achieving rice sufficiency.

The group added that by pushing for more imports, “we are only further supporting the rice industry of the other countries, instead of promoting local rice production”.

Since the end of October last year, SINAG has been releasing its weekly Farmgate Price Watch to guide both the consuming public and the government on the actual price changes of basic food commodities.—Tita Roces with report from Johanne R. Macob

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