Retailers group warns of high prices of rice

A large rice retailers group warned the Arroyo administration yesterday of high rice prices should it push through with its policy of rice trade liberalization and its plan of privatizing the National Food Authority (NFA).

Edelyn Alpuente Loo, president of the 100,000-strong Grains Retailers Confederation, said in a statement that the policy of open rice liberalization "would push local market forces to the brink of destruction and would result in lesser farmer productivity."

Loo said the government’s plan to withdraw support for the local rice industry through the removal of quantitative restrictions on rice imports would deprive Filipino farmers of their income.

With no government subsidies to agricultural farmers, Loo, a rice retailer from Quezon, said this would result in an unnecessary increase in imported rice which would slowly kill the local rice industry.

This would also subject the country to the mercy of foreign rice importers who will monopolize the entire rice industry, Loo added.

The present retail price of rice is between P16 and P22 per kilo. Should liberalization of the rice industry push through, Loo fears the price of rice would skyrocket to "unimaginable levels."

With the steep price of rice, farmers, retailers and consumers will not be able to afford to buy it. This will eventually result in a scenario where big-time rice traders will be able to monopolize the industry, Loo said.

Though the Arroyo administration has already imported 650,000 metric tons of rice to satisfy the country’s supply requirements, the increase in population and decreased productivity due to the El Niño phenomenon are some of the factors which would definitely push the increase in rice prices, she said.