From the News! – Your Daily News

Iris C. Gonzales
Philippine Star

The government is inclined to slash the subsidies given to the National Food Authority (NFA) and instead increase the subsidies given to other sectors.

Finance Undersecretary Jeremias Paul Jr. said the department agreed with Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ralph Recto to cut the subsidies given to the NFA so the government could expand its cash transfer program.

“It’s a good idea. Let the poor get the subsidy,” he said yesterday on the sidelines of a Senate hearing on the proposed P1.415 trillion budget for 2009.

He said that next year, the NFA will lower its rice importation volume and there will be a shift to “domestic production.”

The government, Paul added, would be better off not intervening in the market. “So we’re inclined to do targeted subsidies,” he said.

As such, he said, the government will increase the subsidies given to other sectors.

“It’s up to them where they want to use the money, whether for rice or other food,” he said.

Earlier, Recto said the government should go slow in giving huge subsidies to NFA. He said it would be more beneficial to increase the subsidies given to other sectors such as the unemployed, the senior citizens and to the educational sector.

The interagency Fiscal Incentives Review Board (FIRB) had approved an increase in the Tax Expenditure Fund (TEF) of the NFA.

The so-called TEF is a subsidy released by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to government-owned and controlled-corporations and state-run companies mainly to settle customs duties and other taxes arising from the importation of goods.

The government has programmed a TEF for the grains agency of only P7.5 billion for 2008 but NFA expects its TEF needs to increase to as much as P32 billion or more than four times the programmed amount.

The subsidy enables NFA to continue with its operations and fulfill its mandate of selling rice at a cheaper price than the prevailing market rates. It also helps the grains agency to have more funds for its import requirements.

Providing tax subsidy to the NFA is the more favored mitigating measure instead of reducing the tariffs on rice.

Last year, the NFA incurred a deficit of P2.6 billion due to its mandate to sell rice below market prices.

The government has also allocated P2 billion for power subsidies for roughly P4 million small electricity consumers.

Philippine Star

The United Nations yesterday said it would help monitor the distribution of government-subsidized rice in the country to make sure that it reaches the people who need it most.

UN resident coordinator Nileema Noble assured the Philippine government, through Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, that the organization will support efforts to strengthen the surveillance system that will help identify those who are particularly vulnerable to food price hikes.

“We will be very happy to work with the government and support its ongoing efforts,” Noble said during a media forum organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Greenhills, San Juan.

While he acknowledged the UN’s support, Yap also urged the UN to establish a “global system” to ensure that “we have stockpiles in place.”

“I take the invitation of the UN to work closely with them in terms of food distribution, but I also urge the UN team to think of a regional or global food stockpile program,” Yap said.

He said the program would allow countries in need to buy food “sans political considerations, sans geopolitical considerations.”

He said the current global food crisis was due to “the inability of global nations to put in place global food reserves and stockpiles for access to all.”

Meanwhile, the agriculture secretary renewed his call to the Department of Social Welfare and Development and local government units to put in place the family access cards (FACs) to allow distribution of government subsidized rice to the right beneficiaries.

The Department of Agriculture, through the National Food Authority, is selling state-subsidized rice at P18.25 through NFA rolling stores and Tindahan Natin outlets.

– Helen Flores

Berni Fondevilla
Manila Times

While it may be true—as you pointed out in your July 2 editorial “A second Green Revolution”—that post-Marcos “Philippine administrations subsequently relegated rice production from state priorities,” such official neglect was reversed when the Arroyo government took over six years ago.

Given the continued, higher farm spending by President Arroyo, the Department of Agriculture (DA) has been able to step up the implementation of its intervention measures this dry planting season that allowed palay farmers to exceed the production target of 7.1 million metric tons (MT) for the just-concluded summer harvests.

This means that prior to the onslaught of Typhoon Frank, the DA was on course in meeting its 2008 palay production target of 17.32 MT higher than the record output of 16.24 million MT last year.

The higher production target is in step with the five-harvest Rice Self-Sufficiency Plan of the DA that aims to make our country at least 98 percent sufficient in the staple food in two years’ time by further raising harvests to 18.55 million MT in 2009 and 19.77 million the following year.

This is why the DA is now working overtime on a rehabilitation program for Western Visayas and the 10 more regions battered by the latest typhoon in a bid to offset production losses in the affected provinces and enable the agriculture and fisheries sector to sustain its growth momentum for the rest of the year.

Secretary Yap even cut short last week his official trip to the United States with President Arroyo so he could fly over to Panay Island to check food supply and price movements and start working with local executives plus other stakeholders on a farm rehabilitation program to help the DA achieve its 2008 crop production targets despite the latest natural calamity.

The DA has already asked Malacanang to fund an initial P1.24-billion rehabilitation program to help farmers and fisherfolk get back on their feet in Western Visayas and the 10 other regions devastated by Typhoon Frank.

Right now, the DA has been engaged in an aggressive procurement and distribution strategy precisely in anticipation of unexpected occurrences like the negative impact of Typhoon Frank on agricultural production in almost all regions nationwide.

As a result of this strategy carried out by Secretary Yap, the National Food Authority (NFA) has enough rice in its warehouses to engage in the selective bombardment of stocks in certain areas wherever and whenever necessary.

For intance, the NFA doubled its distribution of state-subsidized rice costing P18.25 a kilo and P25 a kilo to pull down prices of the staple in certain parts of Mindanao where the media reported unwarranted price spikes last month. The media has since reported that prices of the grain have started to fall by P2 to P4 a kilo after Secretary Yap had directed the NFA to flood the cities of Davao and General Santos with low- priced government stocks.

Secretary Yap ordered the NFA last week to do the same in the four provinces of Panay Island-Iloilo, Capiz, Aklan and Antique-that were hit the hardest by Typhoon Frank.

Right now, industry inventories in the region total 137,438 MT, which is equivalent to 46 days’ supply at a daily consumption rate of 3009 MT. The NFA is in possession of stocks totaling 34,185 MT, and is in a position to inject more rice into Panay markers owing to the bumper summer harvests and incoming imports from Vietnam totaling another 600,000 MT.

Berni Fondevilla is an undersecretary in the Department of Agriculture and the chief of staff of the office of the DA secretary.

Marianne V. Go
Philippine Star

Commercial rice prices have stabilized as a result of selective bombardment of state-subsidized stocks in the market, Bureau of Agriculture Statistics director Romeo Recide said.

In a report to Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, Recide said rice prices in Metro Manila have stabilized while those in other regions already dropped by as much as P2 per kilo as of last weekend.

Administrator Jessup Navarro of the National Food Authority (NFA) said this was the result of the selective bombardment strategy carried out by the food agency as ordered by President Arroyo and Yap.

Yap said the price drop is significant because it is happening when retail prices are supposed to be on the upswing during the traditional three-month lean months.

Yap said that given the comfortable NFA stockpile, the government is ready and able to continue flooding the market with state-subsidized stocks in order to further pull down retail prices and stave off undue price spikes wherever and whenever necessary.

The NFA will pump some 350,000 metric tons (MT) or seven million bags every month into the market to stabilize the supply and bring down prices during the lean months and the rest of the year.

The NFA has increased its injection of government-subsidized rice into the market at P18.25 a kilo and commercial varieties of the grain for P25 and P35 a kilo since June.

Navarro said that while commercial prices have gone down to as low as P34 a kilo in certain parts, the NFA will further increase the injection of the government stocks being sold at P35 a kilo wherever needed in order to pull down prices in areas where the retail cost exceeds P38 a kilo.

“Because the NFA has adequate rice stocks in its warehouses, it has been able to undertake this selective bombardment strategy whenever and wherever necessary as a way to stabilize retail prices,” Yap said.

“We will flood the market with even more rice to further stabilize and eventually pull down prices of the staple, especially for the benefit of our low-income consumers,” he added.

Areas where retail prices have started to retreat include Baguio City, where regular milled rice, which used to sell for P38 a kilo, now costs only P36 a kilo, the BAS reported.

In Iloilo and Cebu, regular milled rice now costs only P38 a kilo from a high of P40 a kilo.

In Tuguegarao City, the price of regular-milled rice dropped from P35 to P34 a kilo; well-milled rice from P37 to P36 a kio; and premium rice from P39 to P38 a kilo.

A kilo of regular milled rice in Zamboanga City, which used to cost P39 a kilo, now sells for P38 a kilo; while in Davao City, the price dropped from P38 to P36 a kilo.

In Cotabato City, the price of rice dropped by P1 a kilo, with the regular-milled variety now selling from P38 to P37 a kilo; well-milled from P40 to P39 a kilo; and premium from P41 to P40 a kilo.

According to Navarro, from 3,000 tons of rice, the NFA has increased its volume of supply in the market to 10,000 tons per day, and at times as much as 14,000 tons, which is more than thrice its usual injection rate.

The NFA has sufficient inventories owing to the bumper summer harvests and incoming imports from Vietnam totaling 600.000 MT.

Charles E. Buban
Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines has a total land area of 30 million hectares, of which 13 million are devoted to agriculture (food grains like corn and rice; food crops like coconut and sugarcane; and nonfood crops like livestock production and cutflower).

Rice, the staple food to 80 percent of Filipinos, generally use 3.31 million hectares.

It will be recalled that a few months back, President Macapagal-Arroyo and later, the Department of Agrarian Reform suspended for two years the processing and approval of all land conversion applications for rice lands in the face of feared shortages in rice supply, purportedly because of declining farm lands due to conversion into residential subdivisions, golf courses, tourism and other uses.

So used to seeing

“Perhaps people have been so used to seeing agricultural lands located around the main urban and high population density areas being converted into subdivisions that a lot of people thought a huge portion of the country’s agricultural land is being lost to housing developments,” said Subdivision and Housing Developers Association national president Eduardo Alunan.

This is not true according to Alunan who explained that records would show that since 1975, only about 40,000 hectares were converted to housing, commercial and industrial use.

“This is equivalent to just one-third of one percent of the 13 million hectares of agricultural lands of the country,” he reported. “This fact, alone indicates that lands converted for housing, or even for commercial and industrial uses hardly had any bearing on the overall rice production standing of our country.”

Surpass

PA Alvarez Properties and Development Corp. Chair Romarico Alvarez agreed adding that while the country’s land conversion applications is put on hold, the number of families with no decent shelter will increase in number from between 200,000 and 600,000 a year, surpassing the 3 million mark.

“It’s sad because right now, we still have a backlog of 3.8 million housing units, and is expected to further grow to 4.5 million within 20 years,” Alvarez said.

He believes a review of the moratorium is needed and that the developer’s input should also be considered.

Capacity to address

“Developers in the small- and medium-scale category provides the most number of housing units per project. Since the price is within the reach of most Filipino families, we have the capacity to address the housing backlog at a much shorter time,” said Alvarez citing examples two of his projects, Laguna Buenavista Executive Homes in Calamba, which offers 1,300 units and St. Joseph Village 10 in San Pedro, whose three phases total 2,700 units.

He added that in Laguna, where a huge portion of its projects are located, a huge part of the land is still devoted to agriculture and developers like PA Alvarez are careful in selecting areas for development.

“We only need to strike a balance between ample food supply and addressing the housing needs. Besides the national housing agencies and offices, including the local authorities have more than enough laws and regulation to properly govern the land conversion,” Alvarez said.

Felicito C. Payumo
Philippine Daily Inquirer

DURING the last 50 years, thanks to research and advances in technology, farmers and ranchers were able to increase the world food supply faster than the growth of human population.

But in the next 50 years, Norman E. Borlaug, an agricultural scientist and Nobel Peace Prize awardee, believes that future gains in food production will be harder to come by than in the past.

Many of the cultivated lands, such as those in western countries, are already producing close to their theoretical potential. Global consumers are likely to require double the level of today’s agricultural production–from 5.5 billion to 11 billion gross metric tons. And we will continue to rely on irrigated lands to contribute a disproportionate share of world food supplies.

Zoom in on the Philippines, now referred to by some analysts as ground zero of the global food crisis.

The country is, no doubt, in a worse fix. Domestic rice production has been 12 percent below domestic consumption over the last 6 years, with importation at 1.2 million metric tons a year.

But this year, we are importing 2.1 million tons. The last time we were self-sufficient was in 1971 under the Masagana 99 program. Our farmers do not get price support–the National Food Authority (NFA) could only buy less than 1 percent of production in the last few years compared with 5 percent absorption rate in the 1980s and 10 percent in the 1970s. So the farmers are forced to sell to their creditors who haul their produce straight from the field at very disadvantageous prices. As for input subsidies to farmers … well, the Joc Joc Bolante tale tells the whole story.

The future is even bleaker. Not only is our population increasing, per capita consumption of our 87 million people has been growing at 2.6 percent a year. And the price of imported rice at $1,100 per ton is up three-fold since a year ago.

Since rice is thinly traded–only 27.5 million tons or 6.4 percent was traded–a reduction in exports by the supplier countries to assure supply to their citizens can lead to further spike in prices. And certainly, their decision to form an Organization of Rice Exporting Countries (Orec) does not bode well for us.

What to do?

It is time we abandon our dependence on trade over production for self-sufficiency. I am afraid that a UNDP report that there would be an uptick in production in the rice paddies of Asia next year might lull us back to complacency.

Occasional blips do not alter a trend. Unless some big technological, political and social breakthroughs happen, the future shall be a mere extrapolation of the stark realities of the present. The course of history, while not always linear, needs a radical alteration to change its trajectory.

Irrigation: A vital need
Everyone knows our farmers have many needs–from access to credit to input subsidies, post-harvest facilities, etc. But the most vital has been the most neglected: Irrigation facilities. Borlaug states that we would have to depend mainly on irrigated lands.

Former Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Escudero agrees, as he decries the unfair comparison of Filipino farmers’ abilities with their Asian counterparts. Our farmers are just as productive, but are lacking in government support, particularly in irrigation facilities (Thailand, on the other hand, has a much larger area of irrigated lands).

Hybrid seeds and fertilizer are ineffectual without proper irrigation. Therefore, the need to rehabilitate non-functioning systems and adding more irrigated areas is a no-brainer.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap conceded to Senator Mar Roxas that we need an additional 3 million tons to feed ourselves, but has to count on 2.5 million hectares of land, including rain-fed areas that give less than optimal yield.

I recall having co-authored a law (Republic Act No. 6978) that mandated the National Irrigation Administration to undertake a 10-year program to construct irrigation facilities in the remaining 1,500,000 hectares of unirrigated lands.

It was approved on Jan. 24, 1991, during the 8th Congress. That means we should have irrigated these lands in 2001 if the government had done its job. But some figures show that only 43 percent of lands have functioning irrigation systems, with the balance either completely unirrigated or with systems that are silted or in various state of disrepair.

I can attest to this. The silted Tangilad River irrigation project in Samal, Bataan, built at a cost of P100 million, has not been able to irrigate its entire service area. Despite complaints from farmers, the NIA has not done anything about it.

But what about the areas that cannot be irrigated, mainly those in the uplands, those that depend solely on precipitation because they are outside the service area or lie on elevation higher than existing creek and river impounding systems?

Going by Yap’s statement, we have at least an additional 1 to 2 million hectares of lands that cannot be irrigated. Shall we just let talahib or cogon grass cover them?

Shovelling for their supper
I thought we could learn from the villagers of Ajit Pura in the arid state of Rajasthan, India. The Economist published an account “of 42 women and men scraping earth into panniers, and hoisting them to their heads, walk the contents up to a low embankment rising on the edge of the work-site.”

It is designed to slow run-off of monsoon flood-water, encouraging more of the precious liquid to infiltrate Ajit Pura’s dusty soil. This helps irrigate a few peasant plots for a year or two, before the embankment is washed away.

They call them micro-water catchments. We call them small water impounding systems.

The program to build them under India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme provides 100 days of work to poor Indian folk who are deemed to be self-selecting because only the genuinely needy would agree to work under the sun for an equivalent of $1.50 a day.

Should we not do the same by dotting our countryside with such catchments or small water impounding projects (SWIP) using, mainly, manual labor? After all, the precursor of India’s NREG was the Emergency Employment Administration (EEA) of President Diosdado Macapagal.

We don’t have the Mekongs, the Yangtzes, the Niles or the Ganges that meander across continents over thousands of miles, irrigating and fertilizing alluvial plains and deltas. Being an archipelago, monsoon rains that pour on our island mountaintops cascade down within hours through the plains and reach the sea.

But we can build hundreds of thousands of SWIPs, small catchments that can reduce the volume and force of runoffs as they hold and store water for irrigation during the dry season.

The other beneficial effects are manifold: As the aquifer is replenished, ground water table rises; erosion and siltation are minimized; flooding is controlled; and trees are easily propagated when planted along embankments. The increase in farm income may double after two years.

But the more lasting benefit is institutional strengthening, as the community learn improved fertility and soil management.

We have few SWIPs in the Philippines, such as the project in Talugtog, Nueva Ecija, prominently mentioned in Google. The challenge is in replicating it into hundreds of thousands of SWIPs distributed among 40,000 rural barangays to irrigate our otherwise unirrigable lands.

At a minimum of three SWIPs per barangay, we would have 120,000 projects employing manual labor in the countryside. Since the projects can be inspected for proper completion, ghost workers would be prevented.

This beats the dole-outs that the government is doing; since money is given away free, no one knows how much gets stuck in the hands of the giver.

If the government has money to throw away at the rate of P500 per poor family, plus P300 per child (up to a maximum of three) or P1,400 to 300,000 up to 3 million poor households, or to distribute food coupons to the poorest families in urban villages which the DSWD is still finding hard to locate, why not make them shovel and earn for their supper? That is teaching them how to fish!

(This article reflects the personal opinion of the author and not the official position of the Management Association of the Philippines. The author was a three-term representative of the first district of Bataan and former chair and administrator of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority. Feedback at map@globelines.com.ph. For previous articles, please visit .)

Iris C. Gonzales
Philippine Star

The government hopes to trim the deficit of the National Food Authority (NFA) to P35.8 billion this year from an expected deficit of P43.1 billion, Finance Undersecretary Jeremias Paul Jr.

Paul said the deficit is expected to narrow now that the agency has started to sell rice at P33.50 per kilo.

Previously, the government has been selling rice only at P18.75 per kilo but this has taken its toll on NFA’s finances.

As such, the NFA has started to sell rice at P18.75 per kilo, P25 per kilo and P33.50 per kilo for three different varieties.

Paul said the agency is eyeing to borrow P8 billion in the latter part of the year year to help plug the deficit. However, Paul said the NFA is still finalizing the borrowing plan.

The agency has already sold P8 billion worth of bonds in February.

The government has been looking for ways to lessen the financial problems of NFA, which has been incurring losses due to its mandate to sell rice at cheaper prices.

It has given the agency a tax subsidy of P6.9 billion from January to April for its operational needs.

The subsidy was to enable the NFA to continue with its operations and fulfill its mandate of selling rice at a cheaper price than the prevailing market rates.

However, the latest subsidy figure is just P600 million lower than the programmed tax subsidy for the whole year of P7.5 billion.

The subsidy helps the grains agency to have more funds for its import requirements.

Providing tax subsidy to the NFA is the more favored mitigating measure instead of reducing the tariffs on rice.

The government is looking at various ways to address a rice crisis in the country triggered by skyrocketing prices in the world market.

NFA incurred losses of P1.27 billion last year. In 2006, it incurred losses of P10 billion.

Authorities conceded that the rice crisis is a serious problem which the government needs to address.

As such, officials are now looking for ways to restructure the NFA and prevent it from further incurring losses.

Edith Regalado
Philippine Star

DAVAO CITY – Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap assured the people yesterday that there is sufficient rice supply to last even beyond the end of the year.

“We have more than enough supply of rice that would last us for the next six months, to the end of 2008 and even beyond that,” said Yap, who arrived here to join the party of President Arroyo for a provincial sortie in Southern Mindanao.

Yap said the Philippines continues to buy rice from foreign sources while there has also been an increase in domestic rice production.

“So that is why we can sustain our rice supply even during such periods,” Yap said.

He said the Philippines is not among the 36 countries in the world that were identified as areas with food security problems.

“We are not even among the nine countries in Asia that were said to be in deep trouble with their food security,” Yap added.

He also stressed that rice prices in the Philippines are lower compared to Thailand and Vietnam where the National Food Authority (NFA) buys most of its rice.

Yap was reportedly fuming mad when he saw the long queues of people buying NFA rice at a public market yesterday morning.

“That should not be the case. There is no reason that people have to line up because there is enough supply of rice,” he said.

Yap said he instructed NFA officials here to double if not triple the rice allocations for poor consumers.

“It is really a matter of management. People do not have to move from one place to another just to look for affordable rice,” he added.

Yap likewise said higher rice prices have started to soften up following NFA’s recent release of quality rice at a much lower cost.

“There is no reason that retailers and traders will bring their prices higher because there is already enough supply even of quality rice,” he said.

Yap said he would meet with local government officials, rice traders and NFA representatives to improve the rice situation in the country.

“We have to talk this out with these people and make them understand the situation so as to avoid fluctuations in rice prices,” Yap added.

Manila standard

PRESIDENT Arroyo has ordered the National Food Authority, the state-run grain importer, to encourage large companies to fill their employees’ rice needs in the face of tight rice supplies and soaring commodity prices.

In an executive order she signed on May 2, the President said the NFA should encourage large businesses to either produce rice or import the grain for their employees.

“Moral suasion, not compulsion, shall be applied on large corporations to carry out the purposes of this order,” Mrs. Arroyo said in Executive Order 271.

Meanwhile, the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board yesterday proposed a two-peso fuel subsidy for the transport sector in the face of spiraling commodity prices.

“It’s one of the mitigating measures to ease the effects of rising oil prices,” executive director Manny Mahipus said.

Public utility vehicles are to be given a two-peso discount for every liter of fuel they buy, but Mahipus did not say when the subsidy would take effect.

In Singapore, oil prices steadied in Asian trading Wednesday after hitting a record near $123 a barrel in the previous session on worries over supply disruptions.

Light, sweet crude for June delivery fell 7 cents to $121.77 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midday in Singapore. The contract on Tuesday soared to a record $122.73 a barrel before retreating to settle at $121.84, up $1.87.

“Clearly there’s a lot of concerns about supply at the moment,” said Mark Pervan, senior commodity strategist at ANZ Bank in Melbourne.

“The market’s very jittery on any type of news, particularly supply disruptions.

In the same executive order, Mrs. Arroyo also promised a “package of fiscal or non-fiscal incentives as may be allowed by law” for large firms providing their workers with rice.

Large firms are those with at least 500 employees and whose earnings allow them to produce or import rice without affecting their financial stability.

In a related development, Palace officials said the government would have no problems financing its rice purchases, but it would keep its options open on the Asian Development Bank’s offer of $500 million in aid to countries hardest hit by rising food costs.

The ADB had also pledged to double its lending to $2 billion for agriculture in 2009.

“We have to look at their offer [to see] if we are eligible,” NFA Administrator Jessup Navarro said.

“The Department of Agriculture can make a study to find out how much interest we would have to pay, or who would benefit from it.”

Roy Pelovello and Gigi Muñoz David with AP

Angelo S. Samonte, Reporter
Manila Times

President Gloria Arroyo issued an order early this month that encourages large firms to provide rice for their employees through production or importation. She said either corporate step will help cushion the impact of international price increases of the staple on Filipinos. President Arroyo added that production or importation will ensure that government-subsidized rice is channeled to poor households.

In issuing Executive Order 721, the President said big corporations could either provide their employees rice by entering into a contract for local production, or by importing the grains under the supervision of the National Food Authority (NFA).

The executive order will take effect within a period to be recommended by the NFA but will be in effect for less than two years after its issuance, Mrs. Arroyo added.

The order classifies large corporations as those having at least 500 employees and have been reporting their earnings during the last four years.

The President had instructed the NFA to generate a list of large corporations that will be encouraged to produce or import rice under the order.

Based on Mrs. Arroyo’s order, private corporations could produce rice by leasing public agricultural lands, entering into mutual agreements with private landowners, or using idle lands they own.

The NFA will encourage participating companies to sell any excess rice produced to the local market to help the government address the current rice-production shortage. The country is 90-percent self-sufficient in rice, which means it has to import 10 percent of its grain requirements.

In case a corporation chooses to import rice for their employees, the NFA must be informed and existing laws on rice importations should be followed.

The qualified corporations must also pay fees and service charges from the rice importations to the government.

Importing companies will be eligible for fiscal privileges. The President has ordered, too, several government agencies to formulate a package of fiscal and non-fiscal incentives as allowed by the order.

Mrs. Arroyo said the issuance of Executive Order 721 is in line with the government’s policy of ensuring enough rice supply. It is also aimed, she added, at ensuring that subsidized rice is sold to the people who need it the most, and to prevent crooked traders from passing off NFA rice as commercial rice.

The rice-production idea being encouraged by the order is similar to the corporate rice-farming program of former President Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970s.