Senator Cynthia Villar said the National Food Authority would be assuming a better role under a tariffied system and that is making sure the poorest sector of society would continue to have access to cheap rice.
Villar, chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Food and principal sponsor of the rice tariffication bill, made this statement after President Rodrigo Duterte gave the assurance that even with the liberalization of the rice industry, NFA would continue to provide the public particularly the less fortunate with rice that is affordable and safe.
“We should start with making sure the 4.8 million beneficiaries of the government’s conditional cash transfer program, will be provided with rice that is produced by local farmers,” Villar said.
“This way, we will continue to provide local farmers the market for their produce and at the same time provide CCT beneficiaries with safe and quality rice,” she added.
Villar noted that this scheme would help farmers increase their productivity and profitability by allowing them to produce the rice requirement under the P28-billion rice subsidy of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), at a time when imported rice starts flooding the market.
The senator has been calling for a review of the 4Ps program after it failed to bring down poverty figure in the country, which remains at 27 percent after spending billions of pesos and years of 4Ps implementation.
She has been advocating for a CCT program tied up with agriculture like what is being done in Brazil and Thailand.
She related that the Brazil CCT program, which is the biggest in the world with 8.8 million beneficiaries, farmers were required to grow crops.
The government buys their produce and feeds the school children. In Thailand, they require 6 million school children to drink 200 ml of milk everyday, which brought up their dairy industry.