Proposed RICE Act impact seen dependent on NFA procurement

THE Department of Agriculture (DA) said the proposed Rice Industry and Consumer Empowerment (RICE) Act is being configured to arrest low farmgate prices of palay (unmilled rice), though analysts warned that its impact will ultimately depend on how much of the harvest the government buys, as well as tariff adjustments.

- By Vonn Andrei E. Villamiel

The proposed RICE Act, currently pending in Congress as House Bill No. 1 and Senate Bill No. 1618, seeks to restore and expand the regulatory powers of the National Food Authority (NFA), which had been significantly reduced under Republic Act No. 11203 or the Rice Tariffication Law of 2019.

Under the bill, the NFA would be allowed to directly sell rice to the public, a major expansion of its current role of holding rice reserves for release during emergencies. The NFA would be permitted to sell up to a quarter of its total inventory each month, with the NFA Council authorized to increase this limit as needed.

The expanded powers are intended to enable the NFA to purchase more palay, thereby providing rice traders competition in purchasing the palay harvest while also reducing price volatility.

"The RICE Act needs to be passed so that ... the P8 to P10 palay farmgate price won't happen again," Agriculture Secretary Francisco P. Tiu Laurel, Jr. told reporters at a briefing in December.