| Farmers worry over low buying price of palay |
| Written by Eldie S. Aguirre | |
| Friday, 01 August 2008 | |
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As government agencies boast it has stabilized the supply of rice in the country and Mindanao is holding its title as the food basket in the country, rice farmers expressed fear of incurring huge losses in the forthcoming harvest season due to the sudden drop in the buying price of un-husked rice (palay).
Commercial rice traders are now quoting P14 per kilo for freshly harvested fancy varieties of palay, while ordinary varieties are pegged at P12.
Jaime Mantilla, president of San Agustin, Ruparan Barangay Irrigators’ Association (Sarbida) in Digos City said they will definitely loss their capital outlay over the plummeting farm gate price of palay as harvest time is getting near.
Sarbida has 400 members to include rice farmers in Barangay Tres de Mayo – an adjacent village where most of the rice in the city came from.
Mantilla, also the barangay chairman of Ruparan said the unstable buying price of palay would impoverished rice farmers instead of getting profit out of their efforts in helping the country produce more staple foods to feed its people.
“This is running in contrast on what the farmers are hoping for. We are falling short of our expectations,” Mantilla said.
He said the prices of fertilizer products have gone up to its highest level after the previous harvesting season forcing the farmers to purchase the required 6 bags per hectare through loans from rice traders.
Mantilla said it is a common practice in the province that traders would either lend money for rice farmers to absorb the financial requirements in rice farming on conditions their palay would exclusively be sold to them.
“In this situation, farmers will end up ‘buried’ in financial indebtedness to traders even after the harvest is over since the current buying price is not commensurate to our expenditures,” Mantilla said.
However, some top officials of the National Food Authority (NFA) have assured farmers they will buy dried palay from farmers at P17 per kilo.
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