The Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) has questioned the plan of the Philippine government to ban the entry of rice imports during harvest season, a move that will supposedly serve as a compromise to Malacañang’s latest move to temporarily slash tariff on imported rice from non-ASEAN countries....
State-lender Land Bank of the Philippines continues in administering support programs for the Department of Agriculture as part of the rice tariffication law’s (RTL) implementation to help Filipino rice farmers. In a statement on Wednesday, May 19, Land Bank said it has disbursed a total of P7.5...
Senator Risa Hontiveros urged Malacañang on Wednesday, May 19, to take back the executive order (EO) that lowers tariffs on imported rice, saying this will burden Filipino rice farmers. (Keith Bacongco/MANILA BULLETIN File Photo) “I urge Malacañang to recall EO 135. Lowering imported rice...
Senator Cynthia Villar on Monday, April 26, praised the reported achievements of government agencies in implementing the Rice Tariffication Law (RTL), particularly the funds meant to aid local rice farmers amid the liberalized importation of the commodity. (MANILA BULLETIN File Photo/Jansen Romero)...
The Bureau of Customs (BoC) has confirmed that there has been undervaluation of rice imports in the country and vowed to address the issue. (MANILA BULLETIN) A statement from the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) revealed that BoC Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero has already initiated to plug...
Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization (PHilMech) is confident that with the government’s mechanization efforts, the production cost of palay will go down by more than 20 percent but by the end of 2024 yet. Photo by Timur Kozmenko on Unsplash Philmech Director for Applied...
The senate proposal to use excess rice tariff collections exclusively for cash aid for farmers may be discriminatory to some farmers, a top official from the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) said. In a statement, FFF National Manager Raul Montemayor said the proposal, which is contained in...
The Philippines remains in a strong fiscal position to meet the financial challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic and ride out the global economic crisis, the Department of Finance (DOF) said. Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the government has the financial muscles to reboot the...
“Rice remains as the staple food of Filipinos. And there is no food that is used as widely as rice,” says Department of Trade and Industry Undersecretary Ruth B. Castelo on the Philippines being the sixth largest rice-consuming countries in the world. After over a year of enactment of the...
The Bureau of Customs (BoC) was told to speed up its audit of rice import transactions in 2019, as well as the collection of unpaid tariffs and penalties from erring importers, so it could look into more recent cases of undervaluation in rice importation. This was after the agency reported that it...
As the prices of palay sank to as low as P12 per kilogram (/kg) in some areas, Senator Risa Hontiveros agreed there is a need to amend the Rice Tariffication Law (RTL) and promised to convince the law's author and fellow senator, Cynthia Villar, about it....
The Philippine government was urged to buy all locally produced palay as farm-gate prices sank to as low as P12.50 per kilogram (/kg), a move that may cost around P152 billion or a whopping 2,000 percent increase from the current budget of the National Food Authority (NFA) for its palay...