WORLD BANK CRITICIZED FOR DISCOURAGING STATE SUBSIDIES
TO RICE FARMERS

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today criticized the World Bank for discouraging the grant of state subsidies to rice farmers while urging the government to reduce the tariff on imported rice.

Pimentel said if farmers in Japan and in the other neighboring Asian countries, as well as the United States and Europe, get substantial subsidies from their respective governments to boost food production, there is no reason why Filipino farmers should not receive a similar aid from their government given the rising cost of production for rice, corn, sugar and other crops.

"The World Bank should explain why it says it is 'ruinous' for our government to subsidize our rice farmers but not when Japan, Thailand, the US and other countries subsidize their farmers," he said.

The minority leader said the soaring prices of fertilizer, high-yielding palay varieties and other farm inputs, as well as crop losses caused by natural calamities and pest infestation, have made it increasingly difficult for many local farmer to produce rice and earn reasonable profit from this undertaking.

In fact, Pimentel said it is common to see the subsistence farmers unable to pay irrigation fees to the government or to repay their loans to usurers or banks due mounting production costs, poor harvest or crop failures.

Without government incentives, he said farmers could not be motivated to produce more rice and take advantage of the benefits of modern farm technology in the form of high-yielding palay seedlings.

"Worse, they may be compelled to convert their rice field for planting other crops which are less costly to produce but yield more income," he said.

Pimentel said it is a fact that state subsidies to farmers have greatly helped the US and other countries attain high production in rice, wheat and other agricultural products that they export to other countries.

Noting the ever-increasing volumes of rice being imported into the Philippines (about 2 million metric tons for 2008 alone), Pimentel said that in effect our government is subsidizing the farmers of the exporting countries at the expense of the Filipino farmers.

Pimentel said the country should learn from the deleterious effects of import liberalization which saw Filipino farmers reeling from the impact of the unrestricted inflow of foreign farm products over the past several years. He said the situation was made worse by the government's failure to fulfill its commitment to release sufficient funds for safety nets to enable them to boost their productivity and survive the stiff competition in the global market.