Rice tariffs to
solve consumer woes, boost productivity: NEDA
MANILA — The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA)
on Friday welcomed the passage of the rice tariffication bill in the bicameral
conference committee, which said this bill — once signed into law and enforced
— will solve food supply issues and improve the country’s agricultural
productivity.
The two chambers of Congress have approved the passage of the
rice tariffication bill, which amends Republic Act (RA) No. 8178, otherwise
known as the Agricultural Tariffication Act of 1996. This will replace quantitative
restrictions (QR) on rice imports with tariffs and remove unnecessary
government intervention in the rice market.
“We view this as a positive development as the administration’s
economic team exhausts all efforts to tame increases in the prices of goods.
With only the President’s signature before rice tariffication becomes a law, we
are making a big step in the realization of our agricultural reform agenda,”
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia said.
Pernia said the Bicam-approved bill addresses not only the
tariffication of rice in compliance with the Philippines’ obligation to the
World Trade Organization (WTO), but it also addresses food security by
increasing the availability and accessibility of cheaper rice to the consuming
population.
“The economic team has always been mindful that food remains to
be the major contributor to inflation. Efforts to address food supply concerns,
especially rice, will definitely help bring down consumer prices,” he added.
According to NEDA’s preliminary estimate, headline inflation
rate would be reduced by 1 percentage point if rice prices will be reduced to
the level of imported rice. Even with just a PHP1.00 per kilo reduction in the
wholesale price of rice, headline inflation rate would also be reduced by 0.3
percentage points.
Rice tariffication also helps improve the productivity of
farmers and, as a result, enables them to increase their incomes.
The bill provides for the establishment of a rice
competitiveness enhancement fund (RCEF) from an annual appropriation of PHP 10
billion for the next 6 years.
If the tariff revenues exceed PHP10 billion in any given year,
the excess revenue will still be plowed back to RCEF to support rice farmers.
“The RCEF will be used to provide key interventions to support
our farmers and enhance their competitiveness, including farm machinery and
equipment to improve farm mechanization, rice seed development, propagation and
promotion, expanded rice credit, and extension services,” Pernia said.
A portion of the rice tariff revenues in excess of PHP10 billion
shall also be used to provide direct financial assistance to rice farmers
adversely affected by the removal of the quantitative restriction
DTI private rice import program only partly awarded
November 22, 2018 | 9:51 pm
PHILSTAR
ONLY 15,000 metric tons (MT) of
rice has been awarded out of a total of 350,000 MT private-sector import volume
allocated to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Agriculture Secretary
Emmanuel F. Piñol said.
In a news conference on
Wednesday, Mr. Piñol said: “We have the DTI 350,000 MT, of which only 15,000
has been awarded… The problem is that they did not know that the NFA (National
Food Authority) has a requirement that the importer needs to have a warehouse.”
Mr. Piñol said that DTI has so
far only endorsed Puregold as an importer to the National Food Authority (NFA)
which is in charge of granting import permits to approved companies.
At the height of the rice crisis
the DTI offered its self as a channel for private rice imports, in the hope
that it could directly course large volumes to the retailers and food companies
which it regulates.
“The DTI arrangement is one-time
only, with no deadline,” Mr. Piñol. He added that Robinsons Supermarket,
through its parent Universal Robina Corp. (URC) chairman Lance Y. Gokongwei,
has expressed interest to take part in the DTI’s importation program.
“I think Robinsons is interested.
I spoke to Lance Gokongwei, who is interested, not only in rice importation but
also in linking up with our farmers for the production of good-quality rice. I
would like to commend Robinsons for being the first to signify its intention to
link up with farmers,” Mr. Piñol said.
It can be recalled that URC has
earlier donated P5 million worth of table potato seeds from Canada to the DA
for distribution to farmers in Benguet, Mountain Province, Bukidnon and Davao
del Sur.
Meanwhile, the NFA Council has
approved the out-of-quota importation of rice, with participants required to
demonstrate financial, warehousing and retailing capability.
Asked whether the out-of-quota
imports will clash with the DTI program, Mr. Piñol said: “The DTI came first.
It was a program presented to us. This was approved long before we decided on
the out-of-quota program.” — Reicelene Joy N. Ignacio
Mekong
Delta should forsake unsustainable third rice crop
14:17
| 26/11/2018
VietNamNet
Bridge – Developing flood-based agriculture models, ditching intensive shrimp
farming for integrated farming could be key for the Mekong Delta to cope with
the threat of climate change.
 |
|
Workers prepare the ground for
a shrimp farm pond in the Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang. Intensive
shrimp farming has been regarded as a highly unsustainable production method,
especially in the Mekong Delta. — VNA/VNS Photo Ngoc Ha
|
These
livelihood solutions for the region, predicted to be among worst hit by climate
change and rising sea levels, were presented by Andrew Wyatt, Mekong Delta
programme manager, from the International Union for Conservation of Nature and
Natural Resources (IUCN), at a conference held by Green Mekong to review its
past working year.
Green
Mekong was an initiative by the HCM City-based Tuổi trẻ (Youth) newspaper,
launched shortly after the Government adopted a milestone document on
sustainable development for the Mekong Delta in late 2017, to review
climate-resilient economic models in the Mekong Delta provinces as well as the
implementation progress of the Government’s Resolution.
The
Mekong Delta is facing a series of challenges, as unsustainable land use and
poor management of underground water and alluvium has actually worsened the
rate of the sinking, posing even greater risks than rising sea level, while
weak planning of sea zones and thinning mangroves leave coastal areas exposed
to disastrous consequences from strong typhoons and rising sea level, Wyatt
from IUCN told the conference held last Thursday.
He
advised against intensive farming near the coastal zones and switching to
integrated shrimp-mangroves model, eliminating the need to draw up underground
water, an activity that was proved to accelerate the sinking rate of the delta
as sea level rises.
“The
key issue here is that there needs to be a mindset change, from people,
governments and businesses in the Mekong Delta,” Le Minh Hoan, Party Secretary
of the Dong Thap Province.
Farmers
need to abandon the practice of three rice crops a year, as building up dikes
to retain water in the paddy fields would prevent the already declining
alluvium from entering the fields at all.
“If
the rice’s growth depends solely on the fertilisers, their quality and taste
would suffer, the farmers would also suffer as production costs rise,” Hoan
said, warning careless pursuit of more output would backfire.
He
suggested that there is an urgent need to switch to other integrated models,
such as rice-fish, rice-lotus, or rice-shrimp farming.
“Of
course, each locality would need to find what model most suits them.”
Luong
Minh Quyet, director of Soc Trang Province’s agriculture department, proposed
the establishment of a Mekong Delta committee, chaired by the HCM City Party
Secretary. The committee would have 130 members, who are capable scientists and
engineers that would advise the chair on matters related to Mekong Delta
connectivity and development.
Sustainable
models
From
January to July this year, Green Mekong has reviewed the performance of nearly
30 agricultural production models in the Mekong region with 13 of the best
models selected to receive financial support.
Notable
models include switching low-yielding paddy fields in Ba Tri, a coastal
district of Ben Tre Province, to cattle grass; a wind power farm in Bac Lieu
Province; a model in the upstream regions of Kien Giang seeks to teach farmers
to replace third rice crop with lotus and know-how to grow bananas in tandem
with growing vegetables and breeding fish.
Another
highlight was a story of Le Thanh Nghia, a farmer in Dong Thap Province, who
for 20 years, has painstakingly converted his vast tracts of land into a bamboo
forest, creating a habitat for the storks, once thought to have disappeared
from the area along with the diminished bamboo trees, to return and flourish.
This model was highly rated by the Green Mekong, not only for its successes in
landscape restoration, but also its economic viability as the bamboo forest is
now a known eco-tourism spot.
ASIA
RICE-INDIAN RATES GAIN FOR 3RD WEEK; MARKETS EYE PHILIPPINE ORDER
11/22/2018
* Prices dip in Vietnam, Thai rates
narrow
* Bangladesh to buy 600,000 tonnes
from local farmers
By Harshith Aranya
BENGALURU, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Rice
export prices rose for a third straight week in India as the rupee gained,
while an order from the Philippines did little to infuse activity in Thailand
and Vietnam.
India's 5 percent broken parboiled
variety <RI-INBKN5-P1> was quoted around $367-$375 per tonne this week,
from $363-$371 the last week.
The top exporter's rupee currency
rose to its highest level in more than two months, trimming exporters' margins.
"Paddy rice prices have jumped
in Chhattisgarh and other neighbouring states and accordingly export prices are
going up," said an exporter based in Kakinada in the southern state of
Andhra Pradesh.
In July, the government raised
prices paid to local farmers for common grade paddy rice by 13 percent from a
year earlier to 1,750 rupees per 100 kg for the new season crop.
Meanwhile, neighbouring Bangladesh
will procure 600,000 tonnes of rice at 36 taka ($0.40) per kg from local
farmers in the current harvesting season to boost reserves, a food ministry
official said.
In Vietnam, rates for 5 percent
broken rice <RI-VNBKN5-P1> fell to about $410 a tonne from $415-$420 last
week.
"Though prices are lower,
trade remains very quiet as domestic supplies are empty. Prices will fall
further in the coming weeks, closer to the levels offered by Thailand and
India," a trader based in Ho Chi Minh City said.
"The Tan Long Group offered
118,000 tonnes in a Philippines import tender for 500,000 tonnes earlier this
week, but the firm hasn't been seen buying rice from the local market, and it's
not clear where its source will be."
The Philippines is on a rice-buying
spree this year in a bid to tame prices that surged as stocks at government
warehouses nearly ran out.
Singapore-based commodity trader
Olam International offered to supply the Philippines with 210,000 tonnes and
Vietnam's Tan Long Group Joint Stock Co offered 118,000 tonnes.
Traders said the Vietnamese market
will remain quiet until early next year when supplies of the winter-spring crop
become available.
Meanwhile in Thailand, benchmark 5
percent broken rice <RI-THBKN5-P1> prices were quoted at $382-$395 per
tonne, free on board (FOB) Bangkok, narrowed from $380-$398 last week.
Thailand will only supply part of
the Philippines deal so there has been no immediate impact yet, but there is a
chance that domestic price could rise later this week because of it, a
Bangkok-based rice trader said.
(Reporting by Panu Wongcha-um in
Bangkok, Khanh Vu in Hanoi, Rajendra Jadhav in Mumbai and Ruma Paul in Dhaka;
editing by Jason Neely)
India to give
5 percent subsidy for non-basmati rice exports for four months: government
NOVEMBER 23, 2018 / 11:
A
woman winnows rice in a field on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, November 10, 2017.
REUTERS/Amit Dave/Files
MUMBAI
(Reuters) - India, the world’s biggest rice exporter, will give incentives for
non-basmati rice shipments to help boost flagging overseas sales, the
government said in an order reviewed by Reuters.
The
government will give a subsidy of 5 percent for non-basmati rice exports for
the four months to March 25, 2019, the trade ministry said in the order dated
Nov. 22.
The
subsidy will help accelerate exports in the next few months, Nitin Gupta, vice
president of the rice business at Olam India, told Reuters.
India’s
non-basmati rice exports have weakened this year despite a weaker rupee that
makes the grain cheaper for holders of other currencies.
India’s
rice exports fell 9.6 percent to 5.8 million tonnes in the first six months of
the financial year that began in April, according to official government data,
as Bangladesh, a leading buyer, cut purchases due to a bumper harvest.
The
decision to give financial support for non-basmati rice exports would also help
keep local prices steady, especially when new-season supplies tend to drag
prices down, said B. V. Krishna Rao, president of the Rice Exporters
Association.
New-season
rice supplies have already started arriving in the local market.
Reporting by Rajendra Jadhav;
Writing by Mayank Bhardwaj; Editing by Tom Hogue
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