North Cotabato is a land of ironies: It is a major producer of rice but the farmer’s palay is bought at P15 per kilo while the market price of rice, often imported, is P50 to P60/kilo.
This is a perfect example of daylight robbery because the rule of thumb is price of palay multiplied by 2 should be the price rice.
This means that if the buying price of palay is P15, the selling price of rice should only be P30 per kilo or inversely, if the price of milled rice is P60, then farmers should get P30 per kilo for their palay.
It is clear as light of day that the rice industry of the province, just like in other places in the country, is manipulated by unseen hands and government could not do anything about it.
As I prepare for a possible return to public service, I designed a program which aims to protect Cotabato rice farmers from exploitation while ensuring affordable rice for our local consumers.
This is the Cotabato Rice Republic strategy where the Provincial Government will create a localized supply and demand chain for rice to be managed by the Economic Enterprise Office.
There is a working model already in place implemented by the City of Kidapawan where both the City Mayor, Paolo Evangelista, and the Vice Mayor, Vice Mayor Melvin Jun Lamata Jr., have established the “Bigasan sa Barangay.”
Operated by groups of Bangsamoro women, single mothers, PWDs and senior citizens, the Bigasan sa Barangay sells rice in the barangays sourced from local farmers.
The program is now being expanded to cover Tribal Communities where rice sourced from farmers who are members of the irrigators associations will be sold at no more than P45 kilos.
Under the Cotabato Rice Republic scheme which I designed, this strategy will be expanded province-wide with rice farmers getting support from the provincial government with the help of the Department of Agriculture.
In the memes attached to this post, the process is explained step by step.
The end goal is to create a Rice Industry in North Cotabato where locally produced rice is marketed locally with the excess production to be shared with other LGUs who do not produce rice, especially. the big cities like Cebu or Metro Manila.
When this is done, the Cotabato Rice Republic will prove to be the most effective strategy in ensuring that farmers get a fair return for their investments and labor while consumers are protected from the excessively priced imported rice.
