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.
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