(MANILA BULLETIN)

Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte has put forward his “game-changing” proposal that would allow the government to finally start selling rice for as low as P20 a kilo in the coming year.

“Contrary to the contention of our agriculture officials that selling rice at P20 a kilo, although possible, cannot happen in the near future, market rates of P20 and P30 a kilo are actually doable starting next year, if we were to adopt now a novel palay (rice) productivity program,” Villafuerte said in a statement on Friday, Dec. 22.

In the subsidy-slash-contract-growing proposal, the lawmaker is seeking to provide a subsidy equivalent to P40,000 per hectare for small farmers tilling a million hectares in the country’s top 10 rice-growing provinces.

This is on the condition that the farmers then sell their produce to the government at P9 per kilo of rice.

The provinces, which account for 48 percent of the country’s total production, are Nueva Ecija, Isabela, Maguindanao del Sur, Pangasinan, Cagayan, Bukidnon, Tarlac, Camarines Sur, North Cotabato, and Iloilo.

Villafuerte suggested that the target farmer-beneficiaries in the aforementioned provinces should be selected by the Department of Agriculture (DA) in tandem with local government units (LGUs).

The government will have to set aside P45 billion for the proposed procurement component.

“This will encourage the target beneficiaries to produce more from their respective farms as they will be paid P9 for every kilo of palay (rice) they are able to produce,” Villafuerte noted.

To further incentivize farmer-beneficiaries to produce more of the grain from their croplands, Villafuerte said that either cash prizes or farm machinery like power tillers and harvesters, fertilizers, and other inputs can be offered to those that garner the highest per-hectare yields.

With this set-up, 1.5 billion kilograms of rice can be sold to low-income and other vulnerable sectors at P20 a kilo through President Marcos’ pet project ‘Kadiwa sa Pangulo’ outlets.

Meanwhile, another 1.5 billion kilograms of the staple grain could be sold at a higher P30 a kilo to other consumers all over the country.

The government will earn P30 billion from selling 1.5 billion kilograms of rice at P20 and P45 billion more from selling the other 1.5 billion kilograms at the higher P30 kilo, or a total of P75 billion, according to Villafuerte.

“Thus, at the end of this undertaking, the government will have spent just P10 billion in subsidies for the rice productivity program—in lieu of the current P40 billion—after collecting P75 billion in rice sales and deducting this amount from the P85 billion set aside for the farmers’ subsidy-and-grains-procurement plan,” he said.

The National Unity Party (NUP) president is hoping DA Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. will consider his “out-of-the-box proposal meant to enable the government to sell rice beginning in 2024 at the President-aspired retail price of P20 a kilo".

“We must not forget that our farmers will benefit, too, from cheaper rice because they themselves eat the staple and eventually buy their rice from the market like other Filipino consumers,” he added.