President Ferdinand "Bongbong" R. Marcos Jr. should build strategic reserves to assure corn farmers of high domestic output of grains, the United Broiler Raisers’ Association (UBRA) said on Thursday, July 7.
UBRA president Elias Jose Inciong said the same strategy is being employed by other countries.
"The thing to do is to do what the other countries are doing, you assure your farmers through number one, you build up strategic reserves," he said during an interview with One News.
"In building up strategic reserves, you influence the farmgate prices at the time of harvest, because intervention should happen during times of harvest or oversupply. That is how it is done in other countries."
The UBRA president stressed that Marcos, who is also the acting Agriculture secretary, should restore the confidence of primarily the farmers, especially the poor struggling farmers.
The problem with the past leaderships of the Department of Agriculture, according to Inciong, was that it will only intervene "when producers have withdrawn or have retreated and then they will propose special importation."
“When I say special importation, in the nomenclature of the World Trade Organization (WTO), irregular importation is based on tariff rates as you committed to the WTO. Special importation means you are reducing the tariff rate so that you can help the importers import, and because of that propensity, confidence eroded not only with respect to corn but in the entire sector,” he explained.
Broiler raisers in the country are badly affected by the low quality of chicken feeds which affects their weight, causing them not to meet the standard set by fast-food chains. Even the President took note of this problem during his recent media briefing.
Corn farmers, who supply feed to broiler raisers, have reduced production when their customer hog farmers diminished due to the African Swine Fever or ASF.
As a result of reducing the production of corn, Inciong siad the price of corn has now soared to P22 to 23, from P14 to P16 in the past two years.