Rice prices starting to drop

CEBU, Philippines - With few days left before the start of the harvest season next month, rice prices in public markets have started to drop by at least one to two pesos. 

Rice retailers said they have cut prices on some of their products after wholesalers have also started to slash costs on rice sacks.

Nelia Lequigan, 48-year-old rice retailer at the Carbon Public Market, said prices of most commercial rice varieties have decreased by P50 per sack.

For instance, the typical well-milled rice can now be bought at P40 per kilo from P42 before. Milled rice is simply the rice grain from which the husk, rice bran and germ of rice are removed.

Other fancy rice varieties such as Ganador is now sold at P52 per kilo from P54; Sinandomeng sells at P41 from P43 a kilo; Palawan is bought at P43 from P45 per kilo; and Lion Ivory is at P48 from P50 per kilo.

Price of first class “mais” (rice made from corn) has also dropped to P36 a kilo from P38 before.

Vendors also revealed a sack of “mais” decreased by P100 last week, and just recently, it dropped by another P100. A sack of glutinous rice also dropped by P200, they added. 

Lequigan said prices of their products always depend on prevailing costs of rice sacks imposed by suppliers.

“Kung sila mopa-ubos sa whosale price, kana naay possibility nga mopa-ubos pud mi sa retail price,” she added. “Pero depende pud na sa kadako sa us-os.”

Other market vendors also insisted they can’t adjust their prices for now because price cut of wholesalers is still so minimal.

Merlinda Patindol, another rice retailer, shared 80 percent of her customers now buy NFA rice – which are sold at P27 and P32 per kilo – instead of commercial rice to save money.

“Kasagaran sa mga consumer karon sagolan nila og NFA rice ang ilang napalit nga premium rice sama anang Ganador aron di kaayo mahal ba,” the 50-year-old woman said.

Just temporary

The Department of Agriculture explained the price spike in rice products in recent weeks is just temporary as the harvest season is now coming in September.

Just last week, at least 890,000 sacks of NFA rice from Vietnam arrived in the country to aid the rice supply for August and September.

The government has attributed the recent increase in rice prices to some factors such as tight supply, high buying price of “palay” and some traders manipulating prices.

Some traders have recently been caught hoarding, profiteering and other cartel-like activities which are affecting prices of commodities in the market.    

The National Food Authority also noted the country would boost rice imports from Vietnam, the world’s third largest rice exporter, to a total of one million metric tons this year to stabilize retail prices of rice.

The government already said it would import additional 200,000 metric tons of rice from Vietnam to fill buffer stock of the NFA. The imported rice has been scheduled for delivery from May to August.

In a previous interview, Lucy Rosales of NFA Central Visayas said the recent decrease in rice costs has showed a positive indication of price normalization in the market as harvest season will take place next month.

DA Secretary Proceso Alcala already said that despite the increase in rice costs, the country’s rice sufficiency level has increased.

A recent report by the United States Department of Agriculture revealed milled that rice production in the Philippines increased by an average 5.05 percent from 2009 to 2014.

The report said the country has posted the highest milled rice output growth among all rice-producing countries such as Egypt, India, Cambodia and Bangladesh.  (FREEMAN)