‘Allocate CCT funds to rice farmers’

MANILA, Philippines - A farmers’ party-list group is urging the government to allocate a fourth of the P44-billion budget for conditional cash transfer (CCT) this year to rice farmers not covered by the procurement program of the National Food Authority (NFA) to enable them to cope with the ill-effects of continuous rice smuggling into the country.

In a briefing in Quezon City yesterday, Abono party-list chairman Rosendo So said the “temporary” measure would enable farmers to sell palay at a lower cost to local millers, thus making their produce competitive to rice smuggled from Thailand and Vietnam.

So said the root of the palay procurement problem in the countryside is still the unabated smuggling of foreign rice into ports in the Visayas and Mindanao. 

The smuggled rice has reportedly reached even rice-producing provinces such as Nueva Ecija, Baguio, Pangasinan, La Union and Isabela, competing with local produce and threatening to discourage farmers from planting.

“Allocating a fourth of the CCT budget or about P10 billion to farmers would allow them to sell palay at a price of P14 per kilo from P17.50, which is expected to dip due to the flooding of smuggled rice into the market,” So said.

“This will ensure that market competition would kill smuggling operations as a discounted cavan price of P1,150 will be able to compete with smuggled rice being sold at P1,200 per cavan,” he added.