President Ferdinand Marcos has ordered a 60-day suspension on rice importation, but withheld any tariff adjustments for now, to stop the slump in the farmgate price of palay (unhusked rice), according to Malacañang.
The chief executive granted the recommendation of the Department of Agriculture to temporarily halt rice importation starting 1 September 2025 “to protect local farmers [who are] reeling from low palay prices during this current harvest season.”
“The President issued the directive after consulting with Cabinet members on the sidelines of his 5-day State Visit to India, and upon the recommendation of Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tui-Laurel Jr.,” Presidential Communications Office (PCO) Secretary Dave M. Gomez said in a statement last Wednesday.
Marcos made the decision after the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that the average farmgate price of rice dropped P16.99 per kilo last month from P24.93 per kilo in the same period in 2024.
Industry sources interviewed by BusinessMirror said that the farmgate price of palay has now even dropped to as low as P8 per kilo.
The retail price for local commercial rice, however, remains high and ranges from P30 to P45 per kilo for regular milled and P37 to P52 per kilo for well milled based on the price monitoring of DA in major markets in Metro Manila as of 5 August 2025.
Despite the drop in rice farmgate prices, Marcos said it is time to raise the current 15 percent rice tariff, which he imposed under Executive Order No. 62.
“We will still see if we need to resort to that. Right now the decision is to suspend all rice importation for 60 days beginning Sept. 1,” Gomez said.
Aside from the rice import suspension, DA also earlier proposed raising the rice tariff to 25 percent.
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