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RTL risks farmers’ income loss

Aniela Bautista
Sep 28, 2020
2 min read

Farmers have lost billions of pesos since the implementation of the Rice Tariffication Law (RTL) with the failure of imposing higher tariffs on rice imports, reported Leonardo Montemayor, President of the Federation of Free Farmers, in an interview with ANC last November 21, 2019.

In the same interview, Montemayor also said that the RTL removed the possibility of the President and the National Food Authority imposing any kind of quantitative or import restrictions.

Montemayor explained that the idea of tariffication is to remove the import restrictions and replace it with the proper tariff to protect the local producers.

“The idea of tariffication is you remove the import restrictions but to protect your local producers, you replace that type of quantitative protection with the proper tariff,” Montemayor explained.

The RTL has given higher risks of income loss to Farmers due to the imposing of insufficient tariffs.

The tariffs that will be imposed should also be high to protect the Farmers and the producers.

HARD WORK. Without the hard work of farmers, we would not be able to have a wide range of fruits and vegetables. They help sustain the bountiful harvest of the land. The Rice Tariffication Law (RTL) was made to provide affordable prices for consumers while raising the income of “palay”/rice farmers.

“I would say at the very least 70 to 86 percent,” Montemayor answered when asked about his estimate on how high the tariff should be.

In the data that was presented in the interview, it showed the prices of dry palay, wholesale, retail, and the net income.

The net income shows that the income of farmers last 2019 went down to P12,040 due to the improper imposition of the RTL compared to 2017 which was at P25,960 and 2018 which was at P31,760.

Section 10 of R.A. 11203 otherwise known as the RTL states that “In order to protect the Philippine rice industry from sudden or extreme price fluctuations, a special safeguard duty on rice shall be imposed in accordance with R.A. No. 8800, otherwise known as the ‘Safeguard Measures Act’ and its implementing rules and regulations.”