Stop Rice Smuggling - Grain Self-Sufficiency Goal This Year Faces Hurdle, Farmers Say

Farmers said rice smuggling could imperil President Aquino’s rice self-sufficiency goal this year if this is not stopped. According to Abono Party-List chairman Rosendo So, the smuggling of rice, most of them from a neighboring country, is prevalent in the ports of Mindanao, particularly in Davao and Cebu, where the staple food is being misdeclared as slag, wood wall, tiles or ukay, citing documents he got from the Bureau of Customs (BOC). “The rice contraband from Mindanao are being shipped to Luzon and sold by unscrupulous rice traders for P1,200 per sack, way below the usual price of P1,400 per sack of locally milled palays, which traders and millers usually bought at P17.50 a kilo,” he said.So -- who has been in the forefront of the campaign against smuggling of meat and other agricultural products -- warned of the disastrous impact of the continuing decline in the prices of domestic rice to the country’s rice sector.“Farmers fear that prices for locally produced grains would drop further. Millers are not buying because they cannot compete with the sheer volume of smuggled rice that has been flooding the market,” added So, who along with Cagayan Rep. Jack Enrile, met recently with a group of traders, millers, and farmers who complained about the unabated rice smuggling which they said is gravely affecting their businesses and production.