“Even NEDA wants tariffs lowered on so many food products, knowing that the supply problem will go beyond this year and well into all of 2024”
THIS writer congratulates the new Secretary of Agriculture on his swift confirmation by our legislators. A hard-nosed, street-smart businessman can indeed be the right helmsman for the most troubled department of this government.
How he is able to bring in the right men and women to help him clear the cobwebs and retire the dinosaurs in the long demoralized multi-agency department, while motivating the quiet but dedicated workers who have labored assiduously despite a succession of failed leadership, will mark either success or failure in this great challenge of his life.
Immediately after the president announced his appointment, Kiko (as he is fondly called by friends) was assailed by scheming insiders as a college drop-out, contrary to what his CV claimed.
Also, many doubted that a fishing magnate can relate to land-based fundamentals in rice, corn, vegetables, fruits, and various types of livestock.
But he weathered all that nastiness, and from his early pronouncements, we glean promise of change in an otherwise ossified department where even basics such as production data are fudged.
As he embarks on this journey, his first in the byzantine corridors of government, he will be confronted by a multiplicity of problems on food security.
Poultry farmers are up in arms now that ex-farm prices are selling low, even as wet market retailers try to cash in on the holiday market.
Their usual suspect: over-importation of chicken parts, sold to big food chains where a ‘noche buena’ of fried chicken brings joy to an impoverished family who do not even know what chicken ‘galantina’ or ‘relleno’ served in the tables of the ancien riche is.
Hog growers will also protest at a time when we have not vanquished ASF, when a flood of frozen pork is dumped into our country by traders because depressed consumer appetite in pork-loving China is profitable if exported.
Vegetable and fruit growers are groaning at a spate of low prices in this supposed-to-be season of joy, dumping their tomatoes and other produce because transporting them to the markets will be a losing proposition as the usual middlemen refuse to touch them.
Never mind onions — their prices should not reach the stars next year, as their monopolist seems to be lying low, afraid of getting the ire of the Speaker once more.
But the real baptism of fire for Sec. Kiko will be rice. Yes, rice.
DA senior officials kept assuring the people that once the main palay harvest comes in, barring any typhoons, we will have a bounty of 20 million tons of palay.
The typhoons did not come, yet these DA officials have kept eerily silent on their fatuous claim which this writer disputed in several previous columns. Farm-gate palay prices exceeded 30 pesos a kilo, which means retail prices at 60 pesos per.
And no matter how the BSP tries to tame inflation by upping the interest rate, a monetary tool that affects industry more than our primitive agricultural market, supply cannot be increased enough to meet the inelastic demand.
Even NEDA wants tariffs lowered on so many food products, knowing the supply problem will go beyond this year and well into all of 2024.
Industry stakeholders have publicly stated we need to import, not just the 295,000 ‘best efforts’ purchase of poor quality rice from selective India, but at least 500,000 metric tons to stem the present 60 pesos and rising reality, even past the season of joy.
And as El Nino will result in parched fields which means lower expected harvests in summer 2024, Sec. Kiko’s headache could turn to nightmare.
Imports have become scarce and more expensive if at all, gradually rising to the 630 to 700 dollar level, and NFA cannot help, as the RTL has prohibited it from being a player in the import trade, while it cannot match the private traders in domestic purchases.
Because his predecessor hemmed and hawed in May till July upon the advice of his uber-optimistic and over-promising senior officials, the new secretary is now faced with a lose-lose situation.
Indonesia has beaten us to the draw, its Bulog (their NFA) and licensed privates having practically cornered the thin ASEAN supply, and still increasing their inventory to ensure rice for its 280 million population.
The cross-border trade between China and Vietnam has also been quite hefty, as China will never countenance any food inflation, with 1.4 billion mouths to feed, plus a parasitic North Korea to help.
How will our new secretary counter this baptism of fire?
His policy pronouncements thus far have been well-received, but the results (assuming his sluggish bureaucracy will implement the programs effectively), will be felt in the medium-term, not in the immediate future.
Production is not an overnight effort.
He is caught between a rock and a hard place, but we are hopeful his street smarts, coupled with his proximity to the president, will bring enough common sense into the department to achieve optimum results.
We wish him all the best.