GROUPS representing farmers and agricultural producers on Monday expressed support for a bill that seeks to return the rice market intervention powers of the National Food Authority (NFA).
Among the groups that supported the bill in the course of a hearing conducted by the House Committee on Agriculture and food led by chairman Mark Enverga of Quezon were Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) and Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG).
The subject of the hearing was a substitute bill consolidating 26 related proposals on the proposed Rice Industry and Consumer Empowerment (RICE) Act, including House Bill (HB) No. 1 principally authored by former Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez of Leyte.
“Given the persistent price instability, warehouse congestion, and weakened palay pro procurement, there is now a compelling need to restore to the NFA some, two if not all, of its original regulatory and market intervention powers,” Romualdez said.
Raul Montemayor of FFF told the Enverga committee that rice prices were more stable before the enactment of the Rice Tarrification Law (RTL), when NFA had the authority to freely sell its rice stocks to influence market prices.
“Ngayon po, malikot ang galaw ng presyo ng bigas, up and down,” he said.
He said it is the consumers, including rice farmers, many of whom also buy the staple they produce, who are at the receiving end of the unstable rice market.
“It is the middlemen – traders, importers and wholesalers – who are benefitting from the RTL regime,” he said.
Montemayor suggested to the committee that good practices in pre- and post-RTL be adopted “and the bad ones be discarded.”
SINAG executive director Jayson Cainglet said his group is supporting the proposal to widen NFA’s power to buy palay to help farmers.
“Pag maganda ang presyo, well and good for the farmers. Pero ‘pag mababa, the NFA should procure as much as 10 percent (of the harvest) to influence prices,” he said.
He said SINAG is opposed to the return of NFA’s trading and importation authority.
Cainglet stressed that as much as possible, the government should buy palay or rice only from local producers.
He pointed out the importation benefits foreign farmers.
Enverga gave the concerned agencies until next week to submit their position papers to the substitute bill.
He said his panel intends to finalize the proposed law soon and present to the House plenary.
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