The Department of Agriculture (DA) is against the proposal to reimpose a rice price ceiling on well-milled rice in November, an official said Thursday.

Agriculture Undersecretary Mercedita Sombilla said this in response to a query about farmers' group Samahan ng Industriya ng Agrikultura’s (Sinag) recommendation to reimpose the cap in November due to the fear that traders will “artificially increase” rice prices due to higher prices of unhusked rice or palay.

“I don’t think (so)...the price cap should really be a short-term one. I don’t think we will resort to that,” Sombilla told reporters.

“I don’t think the President would want that,” she said.

Sombilla said the DA aims to plant unhusked rice two times during the dry season.

“We will be able to control the weather by then. With proper irrigation, I think, we will be able to increase our production and we will have higher yields during those times,” Sombilla said.

She also said the DA and the National Food Authority (NFA) will implement contract growing, where they will have an agreement with rice farmers to buy their unhusked rice before they harvest it.

This will ensure that there will be enough supply of unhusked rice and that the NFA will have buffer stock in case of calamity or during the lean months, which are July and August.

In a statement released Thursday, Sinag asked President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., who is also the Agriculture secretary, to reimpose the price cap next month to “pre-empt any attempts to artificially increase the retail price of rice”.

Sinag said farmers are afraid that there will be a surge in rice prices in the following weeks since some millers and traders are offering to buy unhusked rice at P21 to P23.50 for fresh harvest while dry unhusked rice is at P26 to P29 per kilogram.

“While this is positive for our farmers, we are all worried of a possible repeat of the rice price spikes last August where traders tried to justify the increase of rice prices because of the high farmgate prices of palay,” Sinag said.

“So we are asking again our President to intervene and address this potential problem,” they added.

On October 4, Marcos lifted Executive Order 39, which sets the prices of regular rice at P41 per kilogram and well-milled rice at P45 per kilogram.

A few days later, Agriculture Undersecretary Leocadio Sebastian said they had seen rice prices stabilize after the implementation of the ceiling. Jaspearl Tan/DMS