THE NATIONAL Food Authority (NFA) council is planning to give incentives to local farmers and cooperatives instead of raising the buying price of palay from P17 to P18 to address concerns over the agency’s depleting rice buffer stock.

“The proposal of the council is to give an incentive to our farmers only during these three-month period,” Teodoro M. Jumamil, Development Bank of the Philippines representative to the NFA council, said during Thursday’s Senate hearing on the grains body’s rice inventories.

In the three months before the expected arrival of imported rice in June, Mr. Jumamil said farmers would be given a coupon allowing them to receive a kilo of rice from NFA during the lean months in exchange for selling two kilos of palay to the agency.

“This would solve not only the procurement but also the targeted distribution,” he said, noting that 29% of farmers’ food budget is allocated to rice.

Another proposal, he said, was for farmers’ cooperatives and organizations to be given one ton of import quota for selling one ton of rice to NFA.

He added that the earlier proposal of Senator Cynthia A. Villar in the previous hearing to raise the buying price of palay would have implications worth P800 million to the NFA’s finances.

NFA Administrator Jason Laureano Y. Aquino, however, said they are already implementing a similar measure.

“We’re already doing that. Nobody was just selling to NFA,” Mr. Aquino said.

Mr. Jumamil, on the other hand, maintained that the only existing practice of the NFA is to give preference to farmers who sell to NFA.

“This is contractual commitment, demandable right… this is not preference, not privilege. The NFA has no discretion,” he said.

Ms. Villar agreed with the NFA council’s proposal as it would address both the agency’s problem of looking for palay to buy and providing Filipinos with affordable rice.

“They don’t want to use the price as a way of being able to buy because the intervention is always the price. But this is all temporary because when we pass the tarrification (sic) bill, this would be consistent,” she told reporters.

The long-term solution, Ms. Villar, pointed out, would be the passage of the rice tariff bill.

“We have to reform. Because under the period of tariffication, they would no longer have the mandate to import because there would no longer restrictions,” she said.

The bill seeks to remove the quantitative restriction scheme on rice and impose a tariff system on imported rice.

Ms. Villar said the NFA could also consider adopting the practice of the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) requiring farmers to keep a buffer stock that NFA could buy in case of emergencies.

“It looks like the SRA model succeeded,” she said.

The senator said she plans to submit the committee report on the rice tariff bill by May and hopes it would be passed into law before Congress’ sine die adjournment in June.

The bill has also been identified as among the priority bills of the Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council. — Camille A. Aguinaldo

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