AGRICULTURE Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said the P40-million Negros First Rice Processing Center (NFRPC) at Tabunan Village in Bago City has finally started catering to local farmers after years of delay.
Piñol, in his Facebook post Friday, October 6, said the project funded by the Department of Agriculture (DA), after its inauguration led by then President Benigno Aquino III in 2015, had been forgotten.
“The operation of the mothballed modern Japanese-made rice processing complex came after I publicly warned that the Agriculture Department will take over the facility if the Provincial Government fails to make it run,” he added.
The DA top official ordered the immediate utilization of the center during his “Biyaheng Bukid” visit in Negros Occidental last September 28.
When he visited the project, Piñol said “I saw signs that it was operated in time for my visit because I saw cobwebs in the newly milled rice which was bagged.”
The two big rice driers and another 10-ton mobile rice drier acquired using the Yolanda rehabilitation funds were also idle.
In the presence of Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr., he instructed the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist (OPA) to make sure that the driers are commissioned in two weeks or else the agency will take them back.
In his post, Piñol lauded Provincial Agriculturist Japhet Masculino for immediately working on his instructions.
“The rice processing center is not the only the DA-funded facility which was built without the needed planning and social preparation,” he said, adding that it will serve some 7,000 hectares of rice farms in Bago city, which is considered the rice granary of Negros Occidental.
The Provincial Government earlier said the facility has undergone more than two years of “test operations” before it has passed the standards especially in terms of ensuring the quality of milled rice.
Masculino, who was appointed provincial agriculturist earlier this year, said that due to problems on the availability of manpower, the Agricultural Machineries Testing Center was not able to immediately conduct the testing.
There was also a delay in the installation of electrical connections, Masculino said.
“There was also a need to pass an ordinance setting the rates for milling and drying services it will provide to local rice farmers,” he said, confirming that “starting this week, the rice processing center starts catering to farmer-clients.”
Based on the ordinance approved last May, the province set a custom milling rate of P1.70 per kilogram of newly-harvested rice.
The figure, equivalent to about P85 per 50-kilogram bag, is an upscale rate compared to P73 to P87 in private mills.
In terms of recovery rate, NFRPC has 68 percent, higher than only 63 percent of other rice mills in the province.
For drying services, the province will collect P2,000 per batch per 10 hours and P300 for every hour thereafter or a fraction thereof. The payment in kind like rice grain or bran is acceptable at a prevailing market price at the time services are rendered.
The ordinance stated that the governor or his duly authorized representatives can also waive or reduce the imposition of rates and charges in time of natural calamities, pest infestations, and other similar events.
Marañon may also grant incentives to duly registered farmer cooperatives or associations which patronizes the services of the processing center at his discretion, it added.