ZAMBOANGA CITY — Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said the local government units (LGUs) should have their own food security program to ensure a year-round supply for its constituents.
Piñol’s statement came after this city has a shortage of commercial rice supply, largely brought about by the stoppage of imported “smuggled” rice shipment here.
“We see the absence of the usual imported smuggled rice in the markets of Zambasulta (Zamboanga, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi) areas. This has resulted in a (rice) shortage in Zamboanga (City),” Piñol said.
“It has been proven once again that it is wrong to rely on imported rice because historically, the ZamBaSulTa areas have been dependent on smuggled rice and we all know it,” he said.
Despite the shortage, Piñol said the government will not tolerate rice smuggling, describing it as “an unwanted solution” to the problem.
“Funny, that we have to admit it that the successful campaign against rice smuggling was one reason behind the shortage of rice supply in Zamboanga City,” he said.
Rice shortage in a particular locality can be averted if the LGUs have their own food security program, the DA chief said. He said the program should include an inventory of the food demand based on the population, as well as the volume of local production and outside sources.
“While our mandate in the DA (Department of Agriculture) is to support them (LGUs) to produce more (rice), the local planning should be actually handled by the LGU,” he said.
Piñol flew to this city on Monday afternoon following reports that the prices of rice have shot up as high as PHP80 a kilo brought about by the scarcity of commercial rice.
Piñol, accompanied by National Food Authority (NFA) officials, found out that the warehouses of licensed commercial rice traders were empty when they conduct a surprise inspection.
“There was no hoarding (of rice). There is really lack of supply,” he said.
The DA chief said he has requested the NFA in other regions to provide additional 10,000 bags of rice of 50 kilos each to augment allocation of this city.
A cargo ship loaded with rice imported by NFA arrived here last week and unloaded 120,000 bags of rice. Of the total, 40,000 bags had been allocated for this city since the rest are to be shipped to other areas in the region and BaSulTa areas.
Piñol said the rice supply in this city will soon stabilize as farmers are set to harvest their palay in the coming weeks. (Teofilo Garcia, Jr with reports from R.G. Antonet A. Go/PNA)
