By Ellson Quismorio
CIBAC Party-List Rep. Sherwin Tugna believes that the soon-to-be-enacted Rice Tariffication Bill is exactly what the doctor ordered for the 3.5 million rice crop growers in the country.
Tugna, chairman of the House Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms, highlighted the promised boost in modernization that local farmers will get once the measure becomes a law.
This boost, Tugna said, will come in the form of the P10-billion annual support for farmers under the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) provision of the pending law.
"We in CIBAC Party-List believe that the mechanization training and use of inbred seeds will help our farmers be at par with the farmers and agriculturist of the developed countries," said the congressman, who is on his third and final term.
"It will really aid our farmers," Tugna said of the RCEF, which will be sourced from the tariffs on imported rice that will be imposed by the subject law.
The tariffs will act as a replacement for the quantitative restriction on rice imports, which the World Trade Organization (WTO) had prescribed for the Philippines the last two decades. This quantitative restriction has been lifted.
Pointing to the RCEF, Tugna said, "It will help bring back our competitiveness ."
Half or 50 percent of the P10 billion will be given to the Philippine Center for Post Harvest Development and Mechanization (PhilMech), which will be tasked with providing qualified farmer-beneficiaries with the needed equipment that will cut down on farmers' labor cost and in effect drastically reduce the price of palay (unmilled rice).
The equipment includes tillers, tractors, seeders, threshers, rice planters, harvesters, irrigation pumps, small solar irrigation, reapers, driers, millers, etc.
Meanwhile, 30 percent will be released to the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) for the development, propagation, and promotion of inbred rice seeds to rice farmers.
Inbred seeds are said to be cheaper than hybrid seeds since farmers can continually produce them from a mother plant. Hybrid seeds, on the other hand, need to be bought continuously.
Some 10 percent of the fund, to be managed by the Landbank of the Philippines and the Development Bank of the Philippines, will be made available in the form of credit facility with minimal interest rates and with minimum collateral requirements to rice farmers and cooperatives.
The remaining 10 percent will be set aside for the training of the farmers as far as knowledge and technology is concerned.