DA asks Japan to allow RP to buy directly fertilizers under KR-II

The Department of Agriculture (DA) will be asking the Japanese government to allow the government to directly procure fertilizers under the Kennedy Round II (KR II) or the RP-Japan Increased Food Production Program to help local farmers cope with rising production costs, particularly petroleum-based fertilizers.

"Instead of the usual practice of monetizing our annual allocation under the food aid program, we will be requesting that the fertilizers directly be given to the government which in turn will directly sell it to identified farmer groups that need it most," said Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap.

The KR II grants for the Philippines are mostly in the form of fertilizers which are monetized and used to bankroll agriculture projects. An attached agency of the DA, the National Agricultural and Fishery Council (NAFC) handles the monetization of the KR II. The country has been a recipient of the grant since 1977.

Yap noted that farmers are complaining of the surge in the prices of petroleum-based fertilizers, a result of the continuous spike in prices of crude oil in the world market.

"We have to help our farmers at this critical stage, because at the rate crude prices are going up, we don’t see fertilizer prices moving down in the near future," said Yap.

Fertilizers such as urea and ammosul have gone up by about 70 percent to an average of P800 per bag from only P470 last year.

The Japanese government earlier extended the KR II grant to the Philippines after representatives from both countries held extensive negotiations to have the commodity grant revived after this was temporarily suspended last year.

In 2003, the Japanese government downsized the amount of grants distributed to developing countries under the KR II as its own government struggled to resolve its own budgetary constraints. Last year, only 13 countries out of 50 recipients of KR II were given allocations.

At the same time, the Japanese government is being cautious because it is being closely scrutinized by the Diet, Japan’s legislative body which last year conducted an inquiry on the alleged mismanagement of the KR II.

The focus of the probe is on the monopoly of Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi on the contracts for KR II.

Non-government organizations in Japan wanted the KR II stopped, saying recipient countries such as the Philippines have not really made good use of it to eliminate hunger, the primary goal of the program.

Until now, the Philippines has failed to attain self-sufficiency in rice and corn, its major staples. It has in fact, been, increasing its reliance on importation of these commodities to meet the country’s requirements.