Agri chief eyes 1-year trial period for P29 per kilo rice program

Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. on Thursday is planning to extend the trial period for the government’s sale of P29 per kilo to vulnerable sectors for one year to allow more time to gather data and insights to make the initiative sustainable.

“This program is a targeted intervention. It's a large-scale trial to determine if we can sell rice at these low levels for an extended period with government subsidy. We will assess the data comprehensively, backtrack to the farm level and determine what needs to be done to make this program sustainable,” Tiu Laurel said in a statement.

“This large-scale trial will gather data from farm to retail that's why this cannot be done in a month, or two months. This will be a one year program so we can review the entire chain—from buying seeds, planting them, utilizing fertilizer, sourcing fertilizer, harvesting, warehousing, up to the retailing stage—and determine where we could save on costs to lower prices to consumers,” the Agriculture chief said.

Early this month, the Department of Agriculture (DA) launched the “large-scale” trial of selling the National Food Authority’s (NFA) aging buffer rice stock in 10 Kadiwa sites.

The P29 per kilo rice is available for sale to 4Ps beneficiaries, senior citizens, persons with disabilities, solo parents, and indigenous people at the 10 Kadiwa sites in Metro Manila and Bulacan every Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Each beneficiary is allowed to buy up to 10 kilos of rice per month from Kadiwa centers.

The DA is estimating that the full implementation of the P29 program will require approximately 69,000 metric tons of rice, to provide 10 kilos of rice per month at P29 per kilo to the targeted 6.9 million vulnerable households.

Aside from NFA stocks, the DA is also looking at rice supply from the contract-growing arrangement entered into by the National Irrigation Administration with farmers and, if needed, through importation by FTI and other DA controlled corporations to support the P29 per kilo rice program.

Tiu Laurel said the selling price could be lowered if the cost of the grain softens further amid the expected lifting by India of its export ban on non-basmati rice and production in exporting countries such as Vietnam and Thailand improves with the end of El Niño.

The DA chief earlier said the P29 per kilo rice program will be expanded to cover areas outside Luzon by August or September, and ideally to all the 1,500 municipalities of the country.

Aside from the P29 rice program, the DA is also pushing the Rice-for-All initiative where private traders are invited to sell their stocks of well-milled and fancy rice in Kadiwa centers at prices lower than those prevailing in the market. —RF, GMA Integrated News