{"id":237925,"date":"2019-11-19T23:31:56","date_gmt":"2019-11-20T04:31:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=237925"},"modified":"2019-11-19T23:31:56","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T04:31:56","slug":"duterte-orders-da-to-suspend-rice-importation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/11\/19\/duterte-orders-da-to-suspend-rice-importation\/","title":{"rendered":"Duterte orders DA to suspend rice importation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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However, Duterte also emphasized how the importation of rice was necessary to keep the country\u2019s supply of rice stable. (File Photo<\/a>: National Food Authority\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday ordered the Department of Agriculture (DA) to suspend rice importation saying that it is currently harvest season for local rice.<\/p>\n

Duterte said\u00a0he decided to suspend rice imports\u00a0because there was no other \u201cremedy\u201d to ease the effects of the Rice Tariffication Law which led to lower farm gate prices of palay.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is the other remedy? Nothing. I cannot stop tariffication,\u201d Duterte said in a media interview in Malaca\u00f1ang late Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

He said the law helped prevent corruption because it pushed for tariffs instead of import quotas.<\/p>\n

The President said he had no problem losing billions of pesos from government funds to buy rice from local farmers if only to help them sustain their livelihood.<\/p>\n

\u201cMalugi? Lugi tayo. Pilipino? Malugi. Ilang bilyon?\u00a0<\/em>Three billion?\u00a0Lugi tayo ng\u00a0<\/em>three billion. Bakit? Para ang\u00a0<\/em>farmers\u00a0mabuhay. Kaninong gastos? Gastos natin lahat<\/em>\u00a0(What if we suffer losses? How many billions? Three billion? Why? So that farmers can live. Who will be spending? Us),\u201d Duterte said.<\/p>\n

Duterte urged Agriculture Secretary William Dar and Congress to \u201cappropriate money\u201d allowing the government to buy all the rice.<\/p>\n

“You appropriate money and we will buy all the rice, farmgate price\u00a0ng ating<\/em>\u00a0(of our) farmers,\u201d Duterte said.<\/p>\n

The President did not say how long his order to suspend rice imports would be in place.<\/p>\n

Importation still needed<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, Duterte also emphasized how the importation of rice was necessary to keep the country\u2019s supply of rice stable.<\/p>\n

\u201cKung panahon kung wala na, kung hindi ako mag<\/em>-import\u00a0kagaya nung nangyari, wala na<\/em>\u00a0(When the time comes there\u2019s no more rice if we don\u2019t import like before, there won\u2019t be any more supply),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Duterte said the producers’ failure to accurately predict how much rice to produce was one of the reasons why there is a lack of supply.<\/p>\n

He noted that factors such as climate change and natural calamities made it difficult to predict whether or not there would be enough supply for harvest time.<\/p>\n

Farmer groups have called for the law\u2019s amendment or repeal claiming that they have incurred huge losses from being unable to compete with cheaper imported rice.<\/p>\n

With the Rice Tariffication Law, the Philippines has become the top global importer of rice for 2019, according to the latest report of the United States Department of Agriculture-Foreign Agriculture Services (USDA-FAS).<\/p>\n

The USDA-FAS has projected the country\u2019s rice imports to reach a record 3 million metric tons (MT) by year-end\u2014the highest in the world and the highest for the country while China is expected to import 2.5 million MT.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Duterte apologized to local rice farmers over low prices of palay but insisted on the necessity of importing rice to avoid a “food crisis”.<\/p>\n

The DA meanwhile assured to utilize the PHP10-billion Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund to help farmers affected by the implementation of rice tariffication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday ordered the Department of Agriculture (DA) to suspend rice importation saying that it is …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":158974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":237926,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237925\/revisions\/237926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}