Gov’t importation of rice welcomed

DAGUPAN CITY—Thousands of metric tons of rice imported from Vietnam are arriving in rice-producing areas in the Ilocos region in a move that an agriculture watchdog group, led by party-list leader Rosendo So, said is welcome, as long as the importation is done by the government and not left in the hands of the private sector.

So, head of the watchdog group Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (Sinag), was interviewed by the Inquirer in Rosales, Pangasinan province, before he left for Dubai in the last week of December last year.

The Sinag official said he expressed his opinion during a Senate hearing on rice importation when he was asked by

Sen. Cynthia Villar.

“The government needs to import rice because the country can suffer from lack of rice after [Supertyphoon “Yolanda”] devastated agricultural lands in the Visayas,” So said.

“And we said OK, as long as it is done through the National Food Authority (NFA),” he added.

In a previous statement, So said that should private firms be allowed to import rice, they should be limited to the maximum access volume (MAV) set by the government.

He added that private firms that have not used their MAV should be stripped of permits to import and these then given to those who could abide by the import ceilings. This is to protect local supply, So said.

He added that the government should designate a maximum of only two ports of entry for imported rice to be able to check smuggling.

The Ilocos region, composed of the rice-producing provinces of Pangasinan, La Union, Ilocos Sur and Ilocos Norte, is receiving 35,000 MT of rice imported from Vietnam, the regional office of the NFA said on Friday.

The allocation is part of the 500,000 MT of rice that the agency imported for the country, said Dick Dulay, NFA Ilocos region information officer.

Dulay said the volume represented the region’s buffer stock until the next harvest. Pangasinan is the country’s third biggest rice producer, next to Nueva Ecija and Isabela provinces.

In a statement, NFA Regional Director Carlito Co described the imported rice as part of the government’s “precautionary stocks.”

The first batch of imported rice arrived at the Port of San Fernando in mid-December last year. The remaining shipment is expected to arrive in March, Co said.

The rice import will help shore up the Ilocos rice inventory, even as the NFA continues to buy palay from farmers, he said.

He said the imported rice would ease farm gate prices, which, he noted, were still high. Yolanda Sotelo, Inquirer Northern Luzon, and Inquirer Research