Pangasinan offers lessons on rice prices

STA. BARBARA, Pangasinan—Palay prices have remained stable in central Pangasinan despite the peak harvest season, thanks to the rice processing complex (RPC), a Department of Agriculture official said.

Crispulo Bautista, DA regional technical director for operations, said the rice processing complex buys palay at P17 a kilogram, the buying price set by the National Food Authority.

“The rice processing complex, in a way, influenced the price of palay here. Before, during peak harvests, palay price usually goes down,” he said.

The P160-million complex, established on a grant from the Korean government through the Korean International Cooperation Agency (Koica), was built on a government lot here. It began operations in September last year.

It is equipped with modern post-harvest facilities and serves as a one-stop service center for milling, drying and storing palay. It also provides new production technologies to produce high-quality rice.

The complex spans 1,700 square meters with drying capacity of 5,600 metric tons per year or 1,000 bags daily, milling capacity of 50 cavans per hour and storage capacity of 1,100 tons.

“It appears that even local palay traders follow the RPC pricing. They no longer dictate the price like they used to do in the past,” Bautista said.

The price of palay here is higher than the country’s average palay price, which was recorded last week by the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics at P16.31 a kg.

Bautista said the secret of the RPC is its high milling recovery. “So, even if it buys palay at a high price, this is easily recouped in its milling recovery,” he said.

He said it was also a big help to farmers when Typhoons “Pedring” and “Quiel” drenched their harvests last year. “The RPC bought the wet palay, which were eventually dried and milled by the RPC, saving the farmers huge losses,” he said. Gabriel Cardinoza, Inquirer Northern Luzon