Agriculturist office awaits instruction on 'Bigas ng Masa'

THE Office of the Provincial Agriculturist (OPA) of Negros Occidental is still waiting for instruction from the Department of Agriculture (DA) on whether its Bigas ng Masa program will still be implemented in the province.

The DA earlier confirmed that President Rodrigo Duterte is visiting the province for the supposed launching of the program in April, but it did not push through.

Provincial Agriculturist Japhet Masculino told SunStar Bacolod that there might be changes in the program implementation now that the National Food Authority (NFA) is under the DA.

This means that DA, again, has an arm focusing on buying and selling of rice, which is also the concept of Bigas ng Masa program, Masculino added.

“Maybe the DA is still thinking whether to implement the program or not, I am not sure yet,” he said, adding that “we will just wait for its instruction.”

In his visit to the province in March this year, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol announced that a proposed tripartite agreement between the DA, Provincial Government of Negros Occidental, and a farmers’ cooperative will make the province the country’s pilot area in the implementation of the Bigas ng Masa program.

The partnership will result in the selling of commercial rice at less than P40 per kilogram.

Piñol, who visited the province’s Rice Processing Center (RPC) in Bago City, proposed that the operation of RPC will be turned over to a farmers’ cooperative.

The cooperative will be given P20 million in the loan by the DA through the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) so they could provide their members production loans under the Production Loan Easy Access (Plea) program.

Piñol said another P20 million will be loaned out to the cooperative by the ACPC to be used in buying the produce of its members.

The produce will be milled in the RPC and the rice will be sold among Bigas ng Masa outlets to be established by the Provincial Government in all towns and other population centers in Negros Occidental.

The OPA head said that with NFA returning back to the DA, the Bigas ng Masa program might be redundant.

Masculino pointed out that for the consumer side, the program should be implemented if the NFA is doing nothing, or has no activity.

But when the agency’s rice importation arrives, it will stabilize the market “so need for Bigas ng Masa which purpose is also to ensure availability of affordable rice for the consumers.”

“We will just wait and see,” Masculino said, noting that if the program will be implemented, it would mean additional financing support for local farmers, as they will be provided of production and procurement loan.

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