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Romualdez reiterates the need to restore the National Food Authority's regulatory and market intervention powers, citing persistent rice price instability and weakened palay procurement.

Farmer groups support the proposed Rice Industry and Consumer Empowerment (RICE) Act, with the Federation of Free Farmers and SINAG backing expanded NFA authority to stabilize prices and protect local producers.

Committee moves forward as Chairman Mark Enverga directs agencies to submit position papers, aiming to finalize the substitute bill and present it to the House plenary soon.

Former House Speaker Leyte 1st district Rep. Martin Romualdez has reiterated the need to restore the powers of the National Food Authority (NFA).

This, as groups representing farmers and agricultural producers on Monday, May 25 expressed support for a bill that seeks to return the rice market intervention powers of the NFA.

Among the groups that supported the bill in the course of a hearing conducted by the House Committee on Agriculture and Food led by chairman Quezon 1st district Rep. Mark Enverga were the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) and Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG).

The subject of the hearing was a substitute bill consolidating 26 related proposals on the proposed Rice Industry and Consumer Empowerment (RICE) Act, including House Bill (HB) No. 1 principally authored by Romualdez.

“Given the persistent price instability, warehouse congestion, and weakened palay pro procurement, there is now a compelling need to restore to the NFA some, two if not all, of its original regulatory and market intervention powers,” Romualdez, Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (Lakas-CMD) president, said.

Raul Montemayor of FFF told the Enverga committee that rice prices were more stable before the enactment of the Rice Tarrification Law (RTL), when NFA had the authority to freely sell its rice stocks to influence market prices.

“Ngayon po, malikot ang galaw ng presyo ng bigas, up and down (Right now, the price of rice is volative, up and down),” he said.

Montemayor said it is the consumers, including rice farmers, many of whom also buy the staple they produce, who are at the receiving end of the unstable rice market.

“It is the middlemen - traders, importers and wholesalers - who are benefitting from the RTL regime,” he said.

Montemayor suggested to the committee that good practices in pre- and post-RTL be adopted “and the bad ones be discarded".

Meanwhile, SINAG Executive Director Jayson Cainglet said his group is supporting the proposal to widen NFA’s power to buy palay to help farmers.

“Pag maganda ang presyo (If the price is good), well and good for the farmers. Pero ‘pag mababa (But if it's low), the NFA should procure as much as 10 percent (of the harvest) to influence prices,” he said.

He says SINAG is opposed to the return of NFA’s trading and importation authority.

Cainglet stressed that as much as possible, the government should buy palay or rice only from local producers. He pointed out the importation benefits foreign farmers.

Enverga gave the concerned agencies until next week to submit their position papers to the substitute bill.

He said his panel intends to finalize the proposed law soon and present to the House plenary.

Source : mb