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Monday, August 11, 2008

What is the government doing to our farmers?

This year, NFA imported rice at a price of P 44, 731 per metric ton at a foreign exchange rate 41 peso to a dollar, which was already 33 percent higher than the domestic price of only P30,000 per metric ton.

The landed cost of this rice imports reached P67, 096 per metric ton, or 124 percent higher than the prevailing domestic price, which roughly translates to P67/per kilo.

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Commercial Rice produce by our farmers are sold at 35 Pesos per kilo. Unhusked rice at P15 to 17 per kilo. At this price, our farmers can endure the increase in fertilizer (from 950 pesos per bag in January, to 2000 pesos per bag today), not to mention the price of gasoline that runs the tractors, spray costs etc.


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Now these imported rice at P67 per kilo (bought from Vietnam, Thailand, etc.) were dumped to the market at 18 to 25 pesos per kilo.

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Because of this our farmers are out of competition. Many are forced to sell their produce at losing prices, barely able to recover the cost of production. Unhusked rice is now down to 10-12 pesos per kilo, from 15 to 17 per kilo.

This situation led to many farmers swearing NOT to plant rice next planting season. Why? cost of production is 35K per hectare, and if diseases comes to the planted rice, they can barely recover the amount invested.

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Well....our farmers produce are much cheaper at 35 per kilo, but the government decided to buy overseas at P67 per kilo to kill our farmers by dumping them here at P18 pesos per kilo.

Hurray, Madam President....you're the best. Good economics indeed.

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Let us see next year how much can NFA buy overseas, and at what price.


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If the government can buy overseas at 67 per kilo, why not buy from our farmers at the same rate? Marami pa kayong matutulungan. Now the rice farmers in Thailand and Vietnam are laughing at Pinoy farmers as their produced are bought at a premium price from VAT money our farmers paid to the government.

Hay........alis na dyan!