Photo Release

Rice competitiveness would take time: Sen. Cynthia Villar, chairperson of the Committee on Agriculture, Food, and Agrarian Reform, in a press conference Wednesday, August 3, 2022 stresses that competitiveness in rice production would take time to achieve. Villar noted that Vietnamese farmers produce palay at P6 per kilo while Filipino farmers produce it at P11.50 per kilo. “I wrote the law on Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund but it will take time to be able to train farmers to adopt the business model where we have to mechanize, and we have to be able to teach the farmer how to produce their own inbred seeds so that their productivity will increase and their production cost will go down,” Villar said. (Bibo Nueva España/Senate PRIB)