FARMERS said the government has been inconsistent in its policy statements after it backed down from an earlier announcement suspending rice imports in order to prop up farmer incomes during the harvest.

“President (Rodrigo R.) Duterte announced the stoppage of imports during harvest time as early as July 2019 in a dialogue with farmers in Ilocos Sur, but his directive was not followed. Instead, imports ballooned to 3 million tons, or more than double our import requirements for the year,” Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) National Manager Raul Q. Montemayor said in a statement.

“His recent order to suspend imports while farmers are harvesting seems to have been ignored or reversed again,” he added.

On Tuesday night, Mr. Duterte said he ordered the suspension of rice imports during the ongoing harvest, which runs from late September to mid-December. The order was inended to address the 17% collapse in farmgate prices during the nine months to September.

Prices realized by farmers for their crops have softened since before the implementation ofthe Rice Tariffication Law in March, which liberalized imports.

The Agriculture department has estimated 2019 rice imports of about 3.72 million metric tons (MT).

The suspension was later withdrawn after Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar, Executive Secretary Salvador C. Medialdea and Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III met Wednesday evening.

He also condemned government officials’ focus on “palliative and band-aid solutions” to address the problems faced by Filipino rice farmers.

Mr. Dar said Mr. Duterte gave three directives during the Wednesday meeting to help affected rice farmers, which include stricter requirements for issuing sanitary and phytosanitary import clearances (SPSIC), the increase in the buffer stock to 30 days from 15 days via increased procurement from farmers by the National Food Authority (NFA), and a new P3-billion annual allotment over two years to provide cash assistance to rice farmers.

On the increase of buffer stock, Mr. Montemayor said, “even if NFA had the money, it will not have enough warehouse space to store a 30-day buffer stock. Besides, most farmers will simply not be able to sell to the agency because they cannot comply with the NFA’s stringent requirements for moisture content, cleanliness and quality.”

The NFA serves as a buyer of last resort when traders offer low prices to farmers, with the agency posting a support price of P19 per kilo. In recent months, however, the limits of the support price system were exposed after private traders in some provinces offered single-digit buying prices, while the NFA turned out to have limited funds, insufficient for purchasing a significant portion of the harvest.

Mr. Montemayor said the P3-billion annual cash assistance for two years is also not enough to help the farming population of 2.5 million farmers, since the allotment can only help 600,000 rice farmers per year, with each to receive P5,000, insufficient compensation for what he estimates is the loss of about P30,000 in income by each farmer since prices their collapse.

Mr. Montemayor also said that a stricter SPSIC issuance process will only be a temporary solution since importers will eventually comply, leaving no legal reason to deny permit applications.

“SPS measures are intended to protect our crops from pests and diseases that may come with imported rice, and to ensure that foreign rice is safe to eat. They are not intended to stop or control imports. They have to be science-based and must be applied uniformly,” he said.

“Otherwise, the DA (Department of Agriculture) runs the risk of being sued in court by importers for not following the law, or subjected to disputes in the World Trade Organization (WTO) by rice exporting countries,” he said. — Vincent Mariel P. Galang

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