President Rodrigo Duterte has apologized to farmers over the implementation of the Rice Tarrification Law, which appeared to be hurting the livelihood of farmers.
Duterte, however, clarified that he is not seeking for the repeal of the rice importation law.
The chief executive said that he is ready to meet with farmers to address their concerns including low prices of palay, irrigation projects and mechanization programs.
“I will ask my office to arrange for a meeting with them, if it’s possible to get them to one place so I will listen and I will resolve the problem,” Duterte added.
Duterte said that repealing the law could lead to a ‘food crisis’.
“I am not about ready to do that, I do not want to have a food crisis again, because we have a problem, it is just a serious problem, but if you do not have food, for the people, that is different,” the President said.
The Philippines outranked China when it comes to rice importation or buying more rice from other countries.
The country now earns the title of being the world’s biggest rice importer for this year, importing three million metric tons (MT) of rice, according to the United States Department of Agriculture-Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA-FAS).
China, on the other hand, imported 2.5 million MT.
The rice import tripled compared to the last three years which only had an average of 800,000MT China’s rice import, on the other hand, was cut into half.
The country has recently approved the rice liberalization law which allowed rice imports to come in.
