The Department of Agriculture (DA) is not considering reimposing the price ceilings on rice amid calls by a local farm group which warned of a possible artificial shortage.
The Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG) said in a statement yesterday the reimposition of a P45 per kg price cap on well-milled rice next month will “pre-empt new attempts to artificially increase the retail price of rice.”
SINAG warned unscrupulous players could create artificial price hikes to justify the extension of the reduce most favored nation tariff rates on rice.
However, Mercedita Sombilla, DA undersecretary for policy, planning and regulations, told reporters at the sidelines of a forum hosted by the International Rice Research Institute in Pasay City price caps are just short-term solutions.
“We were just forced to implement price caps before… local prices (were not) going down despite the fact that …retailers ha(d) supply of regular and well-milled rice… (but were) selling at P48 to P52 to P55 per kg.,” Sombilla said.
The DA previously implemented the caps of P41 and P45 on regular-milled and well-milled rice, respectively, from September 5 to October 4.
Rosendo So, SINAG chairman, said farmers and millers have reported some traders are offering to buy palay between P21 and 23.50 per kg of fresh harvest and P26 to P29 per kilo of dry palay.
“While this is positive for our farmers; we are all worried of a possible repeat of the rice price spikes last August where traders tried to justify the increase in rice prices because of the high farmgate prices of palay. We are also aware that a scenario of increasing rice prices is being timed with the fresh proposal to reduce the tariffs on imported rice, corn and pork,” So said.
SINAG said at present, importers can sell imported well-milled rice at P42 to 43 per kg to retailers while local well-milled rice can be sold between P41 and P45 per kg.
Local farmgate prices of palay range from P23 to 25 per kg. Imported rice is at P29,800 per metric ton (MT) including freight.
Meanwhile, Sombilla said India’s allocation of as much as 295,000 MT of non-basmati white rice for the Philippines can help assure supply at the end of the harvest season.
“That will add supply to our January-February stocks as it is the time usually for the planting season. Hopefully the impact of El Nino will not be that worse as that volume (from India) will be very important and necessary for us to be able to get through if the El Nino (damage to crops) happens,” Sombilla said.
Earlier this month, Gerald Glenn Panganiban, director of the Bureau of Plant and Industry (BPI), said the Philippines will have stable supply of rice in the last quarter of the year.
Panganiban said the country is expected to harvest 1.9 million MT of rice this month which will boost national buffer stocks of the staple to 74 days from 52 days at present.
Based on DA’s monitoring of public markets in the National Capital Region, the price as of yesterday of local well-milled rice is between P45 to P48 per kg and regular milled, P41 to P45 per kg.
The price of imported well milled rice is at P45 to P48 per kg, while imported regular milled rice is at P43 per kg.
Imported rice ranges from P53 to P60 for the special variety and P50 to P56 for premium.
For local rice, the special variety costs P54 to P62 per kg and premium, P47 to P60 per kg.
According to data from BPI’s National Plant Quarantine Services Division, as much as 2.68 million MT of imported rice arrived in the country as of October 5.
The bulk, or 2.4 million MT that is equivalent to 89 percent of the total shipments, was from Vietnam while 13,579.39 MT or 0.5 percent came from India.
