Philippines Will Sell Imported Rice to Buy Local Rice From Farmers

(Bloomberg) -- The Philippines’ National Food Authority will flood the market with imported rice to keep prices low, while buying more from local farmers hurting from a law that removed caps on overseas purchases.

NFA will sell 3.6 million of 50-kilogram bags of imported rice at 27 pesos ($0.52) a kilo until Oct. 10 to generate 4.86 billion pesos which the state-run agency will use to buy local farmers’ produce, Agriculture Secretary William Dar said at a briefing in Manila. It will raise its buying price for unmilled rice to 19 pesos a kilo from 17 pesos, he said.

The twin moves come amid mounting calls from farmers to amend or repeal the law that liberalized rice importation. Farmers have been complaining that the new tariff-based regime, which was the government’s solution to soaring inflation last year, is hurting their income.

Increasing NFA’s buying price of locally-produced rice by 2 pesos would mean 8,000 pesos in additional income per farmer, Dar said.

Story Link: Philippines Food Agency To Sell More Imported Rice

To contact the reporter on this story: Ditas Lopez in Manila at dlopez55@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Cecilia Yap at cyap19@bloomberg.net, Clarissa Batino

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