A Monetary Board member has cast doubts on the sustainability of the Kadiwa rolling stores, saying while they are useful over the short-term, they can be wasteful over the long-term.
Bruce Tolentino, MB member, told reporters in a seminar jointly hosted by the Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines and San Miguel Corp. in Clark, Pampanga over the weekend, Kadiwa rolling stores are useful if deployed only in select locations such as depressed communities for a limited time such as emergencies and disasters.
“You can only keep it briefly, you can only keep it for a few weeks, a few months as it will cost government money. If we view the Kadiwa as a targeted, short-term assistance, it will be useful but if you view it as a long term, it is wasteful,” Tolentino added.
Tolentino said the public must be informed of how government is stocking up produce in Kadiwa rolling stores for transparency on the rate of subsidies being provided.
“…It’s quick acting but it is usually not sustainable. It will only last until ‘ayuda’ is available including the Kadiwa. Kadiwa is cheap food — bought by the DA at a high market price and sold at a subsidized price but how long can they keep those subsidies?,” Tolentino said.
Agriculture stakeholders have similarly expressed doubt over the sustainability of the Kadiwa rolling store system when the government started selling rice at P25 per kg, just below farmgate price of between P23 and P23.50.
This means the government was subsidizing more than P20 per kg as retail prices should have been between P42 and P46 per kg, based on data of the Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura.
The Federation of Free Farmers also said at P25 per kg, the price of rice at Kadiwa’s rolling stores is “artificial and unsustainable.”
As of last February, the Department of Agriculture’s Agribusiness and Marketing Assistance Service said 308 Kadiwa stores, pop-up stores and Kadiwa-on-wheels have been deployed nationwide. -Jed Macapagal
