Palay farmers in Cagayan Valley and Central Luzon will be among the first batch of farmers allowed to buy the P20-per-kilo rice in August, the Department of Agriculture said.
Starting August 13, 2025, rice farmers listed under the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA) can each purchase up to 10 kilograms of National Food Authority rice at P20 per kilo, per month, at the NFA warehouses, the DA announced, in a statement on Wednesday, July 30.
The DA did not say how many rice farmers registered under the RSBSA are in the two regions but said that nationwide, 2.9 million rice farmers have been listed in the RSBSA.
Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said the DA has not finished fine-tuning the logistics to make the P20/kilo rice available to rice farmers all over the country. He added the DA has also started planning to make it available to 2.8 million fisherfolk listed in the RSBSA.
“It is only fair that those who produce the rice we eat have access to the P20-per-kilogram rice we make available to vulnerable sectors, including minimum wage earners… There will be Kadiwa-FTI (Food Terminal Inc.) booths in NFA warehouses that will sell the P20 rice,” Tiu Laurel said.
The DA added that farmers could buy their monthly rice allocations in bulk or buy several months of rice allocation all at once.
“If they want, they can buy a 50-kg sack of the P20 rice to cover their allocation from August to December,” Tiu Laurel explained.
The NFA will be ready to release approximately 520,000 50-kg bags of rice each month, if all the RSBSA-registered farmers avail of their monthly entitlement, the DA said.
To replenish these stocks, the NFA will have to procure two bags of palay for every bag of rice released, which will help stabilize palay farm-gate prices.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. recently directed the DA to make the P20/kilo rice available to 15 million households or around 60 million Filipinos by 2026, until the end of his term in June 2028.
Tiu Laurel earlier said the DA will allot P10 billion in fresh funds to buy palay from farmers exclusively for the P20/kilo rice program, and will use P8 billion worth of NFA rice stocks to make the affordable rice available to millions of middle-income and low-income Filipinos by 2026.
This will be done in addition to the P9-billion regular palay procurement of the NFA, proposed in the 2026 General Appropriations Act, to build a 15-day rice buffer stock for emergencies and calamities.
Minimum access volume for pork
Meanwhile, the DA said it has taken measures to put 150,000 metric tons (MT) under the minimum access volume (MAV) for imported pork, and sell most of them at affordable prices through the Kadiwa outlets, to bring down prices.
“Majority of this will only be sold through the Kadiwa system to make sure that pork prices will go down to a reasonable level. From that 150,000, around 30,000 MT will be given to processors, meat processors for the canned goods,” Tiu Laurel said.
Pork imported under the MAV quota enjoys a lower tariff of 15 percent compared to the regular rate of 25 percent.
“What we are after is to have these all approved so that by December, prices of rice and pork will be lower, and price spikes will not be much,” Tiu Laurel added.
Last June, the DA chief announced the agency’s plans to start selling subsidized pork products through the government’s Kadiwa outlets in August.
The DA had planned to test it in Metro Manila, Metro Cebu and Metro Davao, with accredited employers and organizations listed by the Department of Labor and Employment.
