Solon warns of rice crisis due to NFA’s zero budget 09/09/2010

.Solon warns of rice crisis due to NFA’s zero budget

09/09/2010
In the face of National Food Authority (NFA)’s “zero budget” for next year, a bill strengthening the agency’s local palay (unhusked rice) procurement capability was filed by a farmer-lawmaker.

Anakpawis Rep. Rafael Mariano filed House Bill 3105 or the Rice Industry Development Act (RIDA) of 2010 “allocating P15 billion to be used exclusively for the purchase of palay from rice farmers at farm gate prices that will ensure a just and decent economic return for rice farmers, particularly the small-scale rice farmers.”

Mariano, who also chairs the peasant group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, said the RIDA seeks to turn the country back to rice self-sufficiency and do away with the government’s policy of rice importation and dependence in a period of three years.

In HB 3105’s explanatory note, Mariano said the bill “aims to create a policy environment of sturdy state intervention that would institutionalize the core programs that will nurse the development and protection of our rice industry into a self-reliant and sustainable economic element of our national development and bring the country away from import-dependency and food insecurity.”... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20100909nat5.html