Nat’l Rice Program slams proposal to abolish NFA

MANILA, Philippines - The National Rice program of the Department of Agriculture (DA) condemned yesterday a proposal to abolish the National Food Authority (NFA) and scrap the quantitative restriction (QR) on rice imports.

In an address during the Sikat Saka planning workshop held in Quezon City yesterday, Agriculture Assistant Secretary Dante Delima said there is now a renewed pressure from the National Economic Development Authority (NFA) and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to abolish the grains procurement agency and scrap the QR on imported rice.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) is petitioning the World Trade Organization (WTO) for a five year-extension of the QR on rice to prevent a surge in cheap rice imports that could hurt the local rice industry especially when the government is striving to attain rice self-sufficiency this year.

To convince other countries to support the extension of the QR, the government can offer market access for the importation of other agricultural products. 

The current QR has set a minimum access volume (MAV) of 350,000 metric tons of rice imports subject to 40 percent duty. Imports outside of MAV are slapped a 50 percent tariff.

Removing the QR on rice, he said, would render farmers vulnerable to the lowering and elimination of tariffs on most agricultural commodities in the ASEAN region by 2015.

 â€œWe want to prepare our farmers by limiting the entry of foreign rice but they want to encourage entry. How are we going to compete with Thailand and Vietnam?” a visibly upset Delima told Agriculture officers and farmers attending the planning session.

“We want to make sure that all the needed infrastructure and irrigation are in place so that by 2015 to 2018 our farmers will be ready to compete. But if you open the market now, they cannot,” he added.

He said this is an upsetting time for the rice industry now that the country’s QR petition with the WTO “has been gaining positive momentum.”

Delima said the proposal to dismantle the NFA is not in keeping with the administration’s goal of achieving sufficiency in food staples.

“I know that the president supports the Food Staples Sufficiency Program (FSSP). But  the proposal  of other agencies run contrary to this...They just want to enhance economic figures, but these will not be felt,” he said.

“If the Department of Agriculture suffers a negative growth, more people will be out of work.  For every 10 workers, three are engaged in agriculture... What they are doing is political suicide,” he added.

 â€œThey’ve been lobbying for this for two years and they want to resurrect it again and again,” he told reporters. “During deliberations, there is severe pressure and lobbying.”

He also said that the NFA has been seeking a higher budget to procure at least 10 percent of the total production under the FSSP but this has not been granted. This corresponds to a budget of P35 billion.