Senator Cynthia Villar said Friday the Department of Agriculture had P25 billion for its two rice programs to boost rice sufficiency and augment the income of farmers and other stakeholders in the agricultural sector.
Villar, head of the Senate committee on agriculture and food, said these programs were the National Rice Program and the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund.
She said Congress had appropriated P15.5 billion for the National Rice Program and P10 billion for the Rice Enhancement Fund.
“The National Rice Program is one of the banner programs of the DA, which focused on rice farming under the Office of the Secretary. It has been there since 1986 under six Presidents,” Villar said.
She says the department classifies it as subsidy to accelerate the adoption of modern rice technology toward increased yield, increased income and disaster risk reduction.
For 2021, Villar said, the P15.5- billion National Rice Program had to be spent as follows: Hybrid Seeds P6.2 billion; Inbred Seeds P375 million; Fertilizer P4.4 billion; Others P858.7 million; Training P998.2 million; R&D P658.7 million; Equipment P1 billion; Irrigation P745.9 million
“However, this computation of allocation for rice through the years should have included the budgets for the irrigation through the NIA averaging P31 B a year and that of NFA, which is subsidized yearly by P7B for the Buffer Stocking Program in times of calamities, fortuitous events or shortfall in production,” Villar said.
Villar said under the RCEF, which started in March 2019, the government removed the quota system on rice importation and replaced it with tariff through the passage of RA 11203 starting on March 5, 2019, until 2024.
She said the tariff was pegged at 35 percent if rice importation was from within the ASEAN; to 180 percent if above the MAV and from a non-ASEAN country.
The law guaranteed a P10-billion funding for the program starting in 2019 with or without collection, and this is in addition to and separate from the budget for the National Rice Program.
This amount is allocated to assist rice farmers who will be negatively affected by the expected increase in the inflow of cheaper rice imports of similar quality into the country and make rice production in the country competitive.
Villar said the RCEF, which has a budget of P10 billion every year until 2024, is focused on the 55 rice- producing provinces across the country covering 947 municipalities.
In 2020 the Bureau of Customs reported a tariff collection of P3 billion—represented taxes collected from January to September 2020 in excess of the threshold set by the RTL, which mandated the first P10 billion.
The law also provides that collections in excess of P10 billion may be allocated to other programs on rice, including financial assistance to small rice farmers, during its first six years of implementation.
A joint resolution proposes to use all rice tariff collections beyond P10 billion as financial aid to the farmers owning one hectare and below numbering around 1 million.
