Saturday, June 07, 2008 Palay buyers in Oro to offer high farm gate prices By Ryan Rosauro
BIGTIME palay buyers are scrambling to offer higher farm gate prices to farmers in Bukidnon, Lanao and Zamboanga provinces as prices of commercial rice varieties shot up to P54 a kilo.
Dr. Erwin Cortez, a rice miller in Aurora town, Zamboanga del Sur, said traders and merchants are aware of the prospects of leaner supply ahead since the rice-planting season usually starts in July.
He said the situation is forcing traders to compete against each other to have access to the unharvested palay recently planted by the farmers.
"Everyone is trying to match each other offers or offer more. This is driving the price of rice higher," Cortez told the Zamboanga del Sur Provincial Board, which conducted an inquiry on the skyrocketing prices of grains.
The cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan are dependent on the rice producing provinces of Bukidnon, Lanao del Norte and Misamis Occidental.
Cortez said even consumers in these provinces will bear the brunt of the high cost of rice because locally milled variety is being sold in their market at prices that match those tendered by palay buyers and traders.
"No one will be spared. Even the towns with huge tracts of land planted to rice will find themselves buying the grains at exorbitant prices," he said.
Journalist Michael Medina, an editor for a local weekly who tracked developments of the rice-trade in the region, said studying the buying frenzy will help consumers understand the economics of the current rice crisis.
He said rice from the palay-producing provinces eventually trickle to the cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan.
"Some of the harvested rice will eventually go to Cebu which is a huge market," Medina said.
Last week, Agriculture undersecretary for operations and former Cagayan de Oro businessman Jesus Emmanuel Paras said palay farmers are holding back the sale of their palay harvest in anticipation of higher rice prices.
Farmers decried Paras' observation, saying their sector does not have the capability to store unmilled grains and dictate its prices.
"Dili namo batasan ang pagtago sa humay. Wala pa ma harvest ang among humay naa nay tag-iya ana, ang among mga financiers (It is not the prices of farmers hoard rice. Our palay is owned by financiers," Benito Garcia of the Bukidnon Irrigators Association.
Garcia said farmers, who lack capital usually resort to borrowing money from traders and merchants in exchange for the harvested grains.
The Bukidnon Provincial Agriculture Office said it has no control of rice supply flow going out of the province.
Ermedio Abang, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) provincial said traders from Cagayan de Oro are buying "every rice available" in Bukidnon at a high price and bring the grains out of the province.
Rice prices in Valencia city dubbed as the "City of Golden Harvest" soared to a range of P46 to P48 this week; last week, it ranged between P36 and P38.
Engineer Alson Quimba, officer-in-charge of Bukidnon Agriculture Office (PAO), said the province has a surplus of at least 5,000 metric tons that could last until the end of June.
He added there is no guarantee that the farmers will not sell their surplus rice to the buyers and merchants to take advantage of the high prices.
In Cagayan de Oro city, consumers wished that the National Food Authority (NFA) would open more outlets to prevent long queues in Cogon and Carmen markets.
"Para dili na magdasok ang mga tawo dinhi sa Cogon. Maluoy pud unta sila sa mga tawo nga sayo pa maglinya pero dugay kaayo mahatagan (So we no longer queue waiting for the NFA retailers to sell us rice. They should pity us)," 24-year-old housewife Noemi Agcod of La Buena Vida in Xavier Heights, said.
70-year-old Teresita Tero, a resident of barangay Agusan, said elderly people should not be made to suffer so they can have rice to eat every day.
Tero said the NFA should opened more outlets in the barangays so consumers will not have to go to the markets.
But angry residents in Davao City mobbed an NFA after finding that the one-kilo rice packs sold there weigh only 750 grams, dzBB radio reported.
Radio dzBB's Super Radyo Davao reported that the residents' lost their tempers after lining up since midnight only to find out that their rice packs lack in weight.
The report said the incident occurred at an NFA outlet owned by one Rosalinda Antero in Buhangin village in Davao City.
Some of the residents said the packs they bought were "underweight by 1/4 kilo," but did not make clear if the rice they bought were one- or two-kilo packs.
No one was reported injured in the incident, but police were deployed to the area and to other NFA outlets in the city.
