NAVOTAS Representative Toby Tiangco welcomed the stricter palay buying rules of the National Food Authority (NFA), saying these will protect farmers from opportunistic traders and help sustain the administration’s P20 per kilo rice program.
“Supporting our farmers and ensuring they are properly compensated is key to keeping the P20 rice program viable,” Tiangco said.
“The stricter rules open the NFA’s palay procurement process to public scrutiny and ensure that only legitimate farmers—not traders—can sell to the agency.,” he added.
Tiangco noted that this measure will discourage “opportunistic traders” from buying palay at low prices from farmers and reselling it to the NFA at the government-supported rate of P20 per kilo.
“Close coordination between the LGU and our agencies is key. We must weed out middlemen who exploit the system to ensure our farmers receive fair market value for their harvests,” he said
Under the new NFA guidelines, only verified farmers can sell palay to the NFA. They must either be listed in the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA) or present certification from their local government unit (LGU).
In addition, NFA branches are required to submit a monthly list of palay sellers and their respective volumes, which will be posted publicly on bulletin boards for transparency.
Tiangco welcomed these reforms as timely and necessary, noting that the P20 rice initiative is already benefiting consumers.
“The P20 rice program is clearly working and its benefits have already been felt by our kababayans. What we need now is to build on this momentum and make sure more Filipinos—and more farmers—benefit from it,” he added.
Tiangco also expressed willingness to support proposed legislation that would grant the NFA additional regulatory powers to stabilize rice prices.
“We need to carefully study whether there is a need to restore certain functions of the NFA so it can respond more effectively during times of price volatility or supply disruptions,” he said.
He added that strengthening NFA’s capacity to support farmers’ cooperatives and beneficiaries of the Rice Processing Systems under the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) is also being considered.
