‘Long-, short-term fix to boost rice supply vital’

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie

HOUSE Committee on Ways and Means Chairman

Joey Sarte Salceda said on Wednesday that both immediate and long-term solutions to increase rice supply, including reviewing programs under the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF), are needed to address hunger in non-rice-producing communities in the Philippines.

S alceda made the statement as the DA warned that imported rice is set to become more expensive than retail prices in the coming weeks.

That is 700,000 more people who were hungry, because NCR is very sensitive to higher import prices. They do not produce any rice,” he said.

C iting Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey, Salceda said the National Capital Region’s (NCR) self-reported hunger has increased from 10.7 percent in March to 15.7 percent in June 2023.

Salceda warned during the briefing of the Department of Agriculture to the House Committee on Food and Agriculture that “the issue here is hunger,” and called on the DA to provide “immediate and long-term solutions” to the country’s rice supply.

Salceda also asked DA Undersecretary Leocadio Sebastian whether he considers “a 12-percent rice supply deficit as food security,” to which Sebastian responded in the negative.

T he DA official said they are pushing for a “shift in focus of the planting season from the wet season to the dry season,” which starts in November.

S alceda then told the DA to propose “the government support needed” to make the shift.

S alceda added that this might require “more irrigation facilities as just around 8 percent of our total land area, out of 18 percent arable land, is actually irrigated.”

Review

SALCEDA also suggested that, “since the six-year period for the mandatory review of the Rice Tariffication Law takes place next year, we may need to review the programs under the RCEF.”

S alceda thinks “the review is timely,” as Sebastian said that boost- ing farmer incomes through higher farmgate prices could also incentivize farmers to make the right investments in fertilizers, seeds, machinery, and other factors.

Salceda said he will push for the conduct of the review of RCEF programs by the Congressional Oversight Committee on Agricultural and Fisheries Modernization (COCAFM) earlier “since there are obviously areas where we allocated more, such as machinery, but can be adjusted already given emerging needs.”

“ The RCEF programs are very supply-side. So, we might even consider shifting the RCEF monies towards a price support for domestic rice produced. That way, the incentive is behavioral. If you produce more, we buy more from you,” he added.

Editor: Jennifer A. Ng