Press Release
May 14, 2008

AFTER DA ADMISSION, WE CAN NOW FOCUS ON SOLVING 5MT RICE SHORTFALL
ROXAS: IMMEDIATELY INCREASE RICE PRODUCTION THRU FERTILIZER LOANS

Senator Mar Roxas said the government can now focus on producing the additional 5 million MT of rice needed in the next three years, after the Department of Agriculture finally admitted that there is a problem in the production of rice.

As an immediate measure to increase rice yields, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Trade and Commerce said the government should consider measures such as providing additional fertilizer for farmers in the form of more access to loans.

"Ngayon, malinaw na kailangan nating mag-ani ng dagdag na 5 milyong tonelada ng bigas bawat taon para magkaroon tayo ng self-sufficiency sa loob ng tatlong taon. Magkakaroon na ng hugis kung saan natin dapat nilalaan ang pera ng gobyerno. Hindi sa kung saan-saan inilalagay, na baka sa pang-pulitika o sa maling kamay mapunta ang pera na ito," he said.

Roxas said that at present, farmers do not have access to affordable financing for fertilizers and other farm inputs, that is why they often fall prey to usurious loans.

"Two bags of fertilizer good for one hectare would cost about P3,000. The question is, how do you get the P3,000 worth of fertilizer to the farmer which would up his yield from the present 4 metric tons per hectare?" said Roxas during the Senate committee on agriculture's hearings on the rice situation.

"Kung dagdagan lang natin yung paggamit ng abono sa ating mga kasalukuyang lupain, siguro mga 1 milyon hanggang 2 milyong tonelada ang dagdag na mapoproduce na bigas dito sa ating bansa," he added.

He added that increasing access to fertilizer loans was an immediate measure that should be followed by other long-term measures.

"The long-term would include irrigation, accretion of land, and the like. But immediately, to get ourselves out of the emergency room, we should provide the necessary amount of fertilizer to the farmer to increase their yields in the next crop. After getting out of the emergency room, we're stabilized and we can now start to think about the three- to five-year horizon," he said.

Roxas requested for the following information from government:

1. A rundown of national government allocations for addressing the rice crisis, to see which of these are new appropriations and which are merely "repackaged" money;

2. The "rice economics" for a hectare of land, to determine the weighted average yield for various types of land and types of grain; and

3. Plans for fertilizer use and estimated increased yield from this.

News Latest News Feed