BOHOL farmers affiliated with the Cebu-based Farmers Development Center Inc. (Fardec) yesterday said that while they are producing rice for Central Visayas, they end up eating camote due to the lack of government support.
Fardec Executive Director Estrella Catarata said one rice trader monopolizes the buying of palay and the selling of rice in Bohol. She said farmers are helpless because most of them owe this rice trader money.
The trader is also accused of using agents and canvassers to strengthen his monopoly of the trade. Sun.Star Cebu is withholding the name of the trader pending his comment.
Catarata said that in planting rice, farmers need to spend for one hectare at least P18,745: P900 for the rice seeds, P6,000 for 14-14-14 fertilizer, P4,900 for urea, P30 for the transport of fertilizer and P500 for chemicals against pests, and P6,415 for labor.
Catarata said that if the P1,080 for thresher and blower and P1,800 for irrigation fee is added, the total rice production cost of P21,625 will be shouldered by the farmer, who is able to harvest only 60 sacks of palay worth P28,800.
Because the farmer has to share one-fourth of his harvest, equivalent to P7,200, to the landlord, he stands to get only P21,600 as gross income. After deducting the production cost, she said, farmers end up with a loss of P25.
Catarata said that if there is a projected shortfall of rice, Fardec suggests that government move toward self-reliance. The group recommends:
- Boosting local food production through sustainable agricultural practices;
- Preserving land for staple crops production instead of encouraging land use and crop conversions;
- Rehabilitating land destroyed by chemical farming and shifting back to organic farming;
- Preserving, protecting and propagating community seed banking of traditional rice varities rather than promoting “terminator†seeds such as BT rice, BT corn and other hybrid varieties that are chemically dependent, environmentally harmful and unsafe for human consumption; and
- Making the National Food Authority (NFA) the lead agency in the procurement of local rice produce of all farmers at relatively higher prices and regulating distribution and marketing so that monopoly traders and cartels cannot control it.
Catarata said farmers are not buying hybrid seeds from the Department of Agriculture because the seeds cannot be recycled and are high-priced and dependent on chemicals.
Department of Agriculture (DA) 7 Director Ricardo Oblena, however, said farmers should shift to hybrid rice so their production will double from 60 sacks per hectare to 120 sacks.
Eduardo Alama, chief of the DA 7 technical services division, said the government, through their agency, is implementing projects that can increase rice production.
Among these projects are the restoration and rehabilitation of irrigation systems, provision of quality genetic materials (hybrid and inbred rice certified seeds) at subsidized price, construction of more farm-to-market roads, construction of post-harvest drying facilities and training farmers on the best rice production practices.
Catarata’s report of a rice monopoly in Bohol supported the allegations of Teresa Alegado, president of the Grains Confederation of the Philippines, that palay buyers and rice millers are creating an artificial shortage to increase the price of rice. (EOB)
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