By Robina Asido

Amid the government's continued effort to bring down the price of rice in the country, the Department of Agriculture revealed that Japan will fund a project that would reduce losses incurred from post-harvest of rice.

In an interview with the Daily Manila Shimbun during the launching of the P20 per kilo of rice in a Kadiwa Store in Quezon City on Thursday, Assistant Agriculture Secretary Arnel De Mesa said the nationwide project for rice post-harvest processing worth around $500 million will be financed through Official Development Assistance (ODA) of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

''The initial review of JICA was already done. They hired Sankyo as a consultant. The review was already completed so that will lead to the development of project feasibility study through JICA. That is the process," De Mesa said.

De Mesa explained that the project aims to lessen the country's losses in post-harvest in rice to improve not only the income of farmers but to also help stabilize rice prices.

"The level of our post-harvest losses is high. We want to further reduce it based on their study. For example Vietnam, has eight percent level of losses, while we have 16 to 18 percent, more than double so we want to further bring it down," he said.

In 2024, De Mesa reported an average losses of 342,000 metric tons of rice which is equivalent to annual post-harvest losses of P7.89 billion.

To comply with the campaign promise of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to bring down the price of rice in the country to 20 pesos per kilo from as high as over 60 pesos per kilo, the Department of Agriculture implemented several programs, including reducing tariff on imported rice and the declaration of maximum suggested retail price on imported rice.

As part of the government's continued effort to make the rice affordable to all Filipinos, the Department of Agriculture formally launched the selling of P20 per kilo of rice in an event led by Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. in a Kadiwa store in Quezon City.

"I reported it to the President last night. He was very happy that we started this. He said: very good, keep it up and let's further expand this program," he said.

"By June in Kadiwa we are planning to open 50 to 55 outlets selling P20 rice... The President ordered for its expansion up to Mindanao for this year, maybe some parts of Visayas and Luzon," he said.

Laurel said the DA positioned its Kadiwa stores with rice worth 20 pesos per kilo in areas with high poverty incidence noting that the subsidized rice is being sold to the vulnerable members of the society including the 4Ps members of the indigent families, persons with disability, solo parents, and senior citizens.

"We will be rolling this out in three phases, this is phase one, our target for phase two would be around July, and September for phase three. Phase two includes the expansion up to Mindanao," he said.

Laurel also assures that based on the current stock of the National Food Authority (NFA), the government has enough stock of rice to supply to Kadiwa stores until the first quarter of next year.

National Food Authority (NFA) Administrator Larry Lacson said it has enough rice despite the possible effect of the coming rainy season.

"Good thing we stocked a lot of rice which is equivalent to a total of 8 million bags of rice or 400,000 metric tons. It's huge even if we divide it into five days buffer stock. It's still huge, so before the next harvest our warehouse will have space for us to buy new supplies to replace the rice that we have sold now," he said. DMS