DA chief meets with various farmers' group

Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. has met with various farmers’ groups as he continues the reorganization within the Department of Agriculture.

- BELLA CARIASO

Elias Jose Inciong, United Broilers Raisers Association president, said many issues, including those on trade policies, were discussed during the consultation yesterday.

The consultation, held in Taguig City, was attended by Sen. Cynthia Villar who chairs the Senate committee on agriculture, food and agrarian reform as well as by several lawmakers led by Rep. Mark Enverga, who chairs the House committee on agriculture and food.

Also attending were Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura chairman Rosendo So and SINAG executive director Jayson Cainglet.

Cainglet welcomed Laurel’s efforts to reach out to various stakeholders, saying this “ushers in a new era of collaborative working relationship” between the agriculture industry and the new Department of Agriculture (DA) leadership.

Meanwhile, Raul Montemayor, Federation of Free Farmers national chairman, said yesterday that the spike in retail prices of rice is “a bit alarming.”

This spike, he explained in a radio interview, is alarming because it is happening during the peak of harvest season and after another peasant group warned that the cost of the staple food could reach as high as P60 per kilo in December.

Montemayor described the upward trend in the farmgate price of palay and the retail cost of the grains as “very unusual.”

“We are surprised at the upward trend in the farmgate price of palay when we are at the peak of the harvest. (It is) very surprising as normally, especially this October and November, we have bountiful harvest and the trend should normally be downward. (But) there are places where the farmgate price reached as high as P30 (per kilo), although the average is around P25 or P26 per kilo,” Montemayor pointed out.

In an earlier interview with