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GMA’s
‘Farmers as Importers Program’ Spells Doom for Rice Agriculture
Organized rice farmers
are aghast at the prospect of being turned into importers courtesy of President
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s new Farmers as Importers Program (FIP). Their
leaders are outraged no end at the way the country’s agriculture has
degenerated into a mere importation scheme since Macapagal-Arroyo, who as
senator was chief author of the country’s globalization program, took over as
president through a people’s uprising that also included peasant power.
By
Gerry Albert Corpuz
Bulatlat.com
The Philippines is a rice-producing country with over 80 million people
depending on it for their main staple. Around 2.7 million hectares or 30 percent
of the Philippines’ total arable land are devoted to rice production. The rice
sector in the Philippines employs over 11 million farmers and close to
three-fourths of farm household income is derived from rice farming and related
activities.
The government admitted that rice production in the country has consistently
performed well for over a decade since 1990 except for some years when the El Niño
phenomenon and other natural calamities hit the country. Government data reveals
that production in 2001 posted an all-time high of 12.95 metric tons of palay,
which was 4.6 percent higher than in the following year.
Despite the strong showing of rice agriculture, farmers are complaining about
the state policies pertaining to procurement of locally-produced palay and the
massive importation of rice.
Peasant groups said the government totally abandoned its responsibility to
procure palay stocks from farmers and instead increasingly got obsessed in
buying rice abroad to meet the country's domestic rice requirement.
Bit trouble lies ahead in the agricultural homefront in the next couple of
months as the Macapagal-Arroyo administration will push its plan for so-called
farmers associations and cooperatives to take their chances in the government's
“farmers as rice importers program.”
But peasant groups, notably the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP –
Peasant Movement in the Philippines) have vowed to send the rice importation
program for farmers six feet below ground.
From the rule of thumb to the corporate game of globalization
The National Food Authority (NFA) last week announced that the government is set
to implement a national program that would encourage local farmers to import
rice and start building their lives outside their rice pads and cultivated farm
lots.
But peasant associations refused to honor the code of corporate ballgame. For
them, the plan to integrate local farmers in the state importation activities
under the dictum of globalization is a national curse and round-the-clock class
exploitation.
Nueva Ecija-based farmer and peasant leader Rafael Mariano shook his head when
he learned last week that the NFA is all set to bring in 800,000 metric tons of
imported rice this year.
But what shocked Mariano, chair of KMP, was the NFA's directive to
"accredited farmers groups and cooperatives" to take part in the
importation of rice this year.
"This is outrageous, totally bankrupt and grossly despicable,” Mariano
told Bulatlat.com. Encouraging farmers to leave their rice plots and concentrate
on the importation of rice will not turn the tables in favor of small farmers.
It would only intensify the problem of landlessness and food insecurity."
In fact, KMP's Mariano said, there was no clamor for peasant organizations to
engage in the importation of rice. "Rice farmers oppose the state's policy
on rice importation. The clamor only exists in the minds of NFA bureaucrats
close to Malacañang," he said.
The peasant described “farmers groups and cooperatives” mentioned by the
food authority as mere adjuncts of rice syndicates or worse, “fly-by-night
organizations or conduits of corporate giants in the rice sector."
Under the Farmers
as Importers Program (FIP), the national government through the NFA will allow
farmers groups or their cooperatives to import 400,000 metric tons of rice or
about 50 percent of the country's commitment on rice importation under the World
Trade Organization (WTO) this year.
The importation is in line with the Macapagal-Arroyo administration's objective
to enhance the entrepreneurial capability of the farmers, teach them the nuances
of rice trading to ultimately wean them away from tillers of the soil to traders
of their produce.
“Heaven forbid Macapagal-Arroyo and the NFA for endorsing another
disaster-ridden program,” Mariano said. “This is a path breaking run to
ultimate catastrophe."
The peasant
leader said the Filipino farmers are opposed to rice importation and trade
liberalization in agriculture. The demands of rice farmers aside from an end to
anarchic importation of rice include the increase in the procurement capability
of the NFA to buy their produce from 10 percent to 90 percent and hike the price
of palay from the average P5 per kilo to P15 per kilo, he said.
Two quarter tranches
NFA administrator Arthur Yap in a press conference last week said the arrival of
400,000 metric tons would come into two-quarter tranches. The first volume set
at 150,000 metric tons is underway. The shipment of imported rice was done last
Jan. 1 to 15. He said the shipment of the remaining 250,000 metric tons of
imported rice is scheduled on April 1 to 15.
The NFA will import the remaining 400,000 metric tons of rice between July and
September to cushion the impact of the lean season to domestic rice prices. So
far, the authority has accredited 500 “farmer organizations” nationwide
which the NFA said had benefited from the importation of 20,200 metric tons of
premium rice last year.
The Alyansa ng Magbubukid sa Gitnang Luzon (AMGL), a regional alliance of
peasant groups in Central Luzon, threatened to stage a massive street
demonstration in Manila to protest NFA's policy and program on rice importation.
An AMGL leader said the farmers have enough produce to feed the people. “Why
can't the Macapagal-Arroyo government through the NFA buy our palay at a just
price and rid itself with importation. Is it because the bureaucrats in
connivance with rice cartels and unscrupulous traders are raking profits by
keeping prices of palay at depressed levels and by leaving us at the mercy of
all-time profiteers?,” he said.
AMGL has questioned government’s rice import policy citing government reports
that placed the country's inventory stock at 2.7 million metric tons -- enough
to last for 104 days based on the daily average national rice requirement of
26,000 metric tons.
AMGL said rice farmers are expected to yield 5.6 million metric tons starting
March this year while the NFA has a stock level of 846,900 metric tons or about
31 percent of the national inventory which is expected to last until the first
week of August this year -- or equivalent to the 33 days security stock.
The militant peasant group also disclosed that around 3 million bags of imported
rice are expected to arrive this March to be facilitated by so-called
"farmer groups and cooperatives" commissioned by NFA.
The AMGL said the NFA is set to sell 6.9 million bags of imported rice in the
first quarter of 2003 and is prepared to sell more to keep itself off from
buying palay stocks from small farmers at the time of the harvest season
starting this March.
"The government wants to flood this country with imported rice at the
expense of domestic production and to the detriment of millions of rice farmers
in the country. This is not only a sabotage of local production but one of the
biggest fatal blows of Macapagal-Arroyo administration to the single biggest
class in the country," the AMGL said in a statement.
Cartel's game, cartel's gain
The Kalipunan ng mga Samahang Magsasaka sa Timog Katagalugan (Kasama-TK),
another regional alliance of peasant groups in Southern Tagalog, said the
importation of rice is being orchestrated by a cartel closed to Mrs.
Macapagal-Arroyo and some Palace officials.
"Let's call a spade, a spade. Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo is obsessed to please
the corporate lords of globalizations and has given the cartel a powerful role
in the importation of rice," the group said.
Kasama-TK chair Eduardo Gumanoy said the so-called "farmers groups and
cooperatives" are actually dummies of big rice traders, cartels or private
groups who want to make a windfall from rice imports.
"These groups help Macapagal-Arroyo pursue to the fullest the government's
import liberalization policy and commitment in the rice sector. This rice
importation project will turn in super profits as well as keep domestic prices
of palay at rocked bottom levels," Gumanoy said.
Kasama-TK downplayed NFA officials' assertion that the flooding of local markets
with imported rice will arrest any unreasonable increase in the prices of rice
in the market or will stop any speculative attack on the prices of rice.
"The law of supply and demand is just a myth. Super monopolies, cartels and
rice syndicates dictate and control the marketing, distribution and pricing of
rice and other agricultural products," the group further said.
Rice prices last month were pegged at P17.57 per kilogram retail for regular
milled rice and 19.91 per kilogram retail of well-milled rice. NFA stocks priced
at P14 per kilogram are sold in Tindahan ni Gloria Labandera
(TGL) rolling stores and Bigasan ni Gloria sa Palengke (GBP).
Lorenzo's track
Agriculture Secretary Luis Lorenzo, meanwhile, said the implementation of the
expanded rice importation program under the NFA will eliminate the authority's
monopoly in rice importation and the agency's move to mobilize farmers groups
and cooperatives is part of NFA's work plan to unload itself of importation
activities.
But Lorenzo denied that NFA's recent move was in connection with the state's
thrust to put the agency under privatization to allay fears that a wholesale
loss of jobs in the NFA will take place. The NFA has 6,000 employees and
maintain about 800 warehouses and thousand post-harvest facilities nationwide.
The NFA is mandated to procure palay stocks from farmers through support price
subsidies. "But NFA's buying capability has been reduced to a fraction of a
dime. We were left at the mercy of rice cartels like the Binondo 7 and their
dummies who have underpriced our palay since time immemorial," says Danilo
Ramos, KMP's secretary general.
From January to November last year, the NFA managed to buy only 260,000 metric
tons of palay out of a possible 12 million metric tons last year or roughly 2.17
percent of the palay farmers total production. KMP's Ramos said farmers were
forced to sell their palay at less than cost because of NFA's policy to liberate
itself from buying palay stocks of farmers and petty producers.
In contrast, the NFA imported 1.2 million metric tons of rice last year. In
2001, the NFA imported not less than 700,000 metric tons of rice and 839,000
metric tons in 1999. At present the NFA has 16,850 accredited retailers, 4,274
rolling stores and 9,453 Bigasan centers, which sell NFA, rice exclusively.
"The NFA has completely discarded its function and rice procurement program
in favor of importation. The agency has become a private entity taking charge of
importation, selling and distribution of imported rice", Ramos added.
The NFA said the farmgate price of palay last year went up by P 1.31 or P 9.07
per kilo of palay compared to P 7.76 per kilo recorded last 2001. But peasant
groups from rice-producing provinces in Central Luzon said prices of palay were
kept between P5 to P7.50 per kilo.
Last year,
thousands of farmers from Central Luzon went to the main capital to press for a
P15 price per kilo of palay. Bulatlat.com
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