ARISE DAILY

02/12/2022

02/12/2022

Local farmers, fisherfolks reject EO 171 extension By BERNIE CAHILES-MAGKILAT Farmer and fisherfolk organizations were dismayed over the planned extension of Executive Order No. 171, saying it is killing local food producers. EO 171 temporarily modified the rates of import duty on various pro

30/11/2022

MANILA, Philippines — The national government should empower communities through a risk-management approach against environmental vulnerabilities. This is what environment and sustainability

20/11/2022

NNARA-Youth
2oras ·
𝗨𝗡𝗜𝗧𝗬 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗗𝗘𝗠𝗔𝗡𝗗𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗜𝗚𝗡𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗢𝗙 𝗖𝗬𝗡𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗔 𝗩𝗜𝗟𝗟𝗔𝗥 #𝗩𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻

We, the undersigned organizations, demand Senator Cynthia Villar to step down as the chairperson of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food and Agrarian Reform and Senate Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Climate Change as her self-serving statements and actions over the decades have been seriously detrimental to millions of poor Filipino farmers and agriculture stakeholders.

We denounce Senator Villar’s pronouncement that defends the conversion of agricultural lands into unproductive subdivisions – a practice that the real estate mogul Villar clan has been engaged in unabashed since their rise to the bureaucracy. Agricultural lands should be distributed to and owned by hardworking farmers whose blood and sweat ensure that we have food on our tables.

We hold Senator Villar accountable for the liberalization of rice importation that resulted in the drastic plunging of palay prices and Php206 billion losses for farmers. As the principal author and proponent of the Rice Liberalization Law (RA 11203), Senator Villar removed restrictions on rice importation and clipped most of the powers of the National Food Authority (NFA) to procure local rice and regulate prices by selling affordable locally-produced rice in the market.

We question Senator Villar’s capacity to serve the interest of Filipino farmers, who comprise the majority of our population, as this contradicts her family’s business interests. As a land-owning elite who converts lands for a living, the class interest of Senator Villar can never be reconciled with the interest of ordinary farmers to own the land they have been tilling for decades.

We take note that significant Food Self-Sufficiency Bills – the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill that seeks to distribute lands to farmers for free, the Rice Industry Development Act that seeks to strengthen domestic rice production, repeal of RA 11203, and the Php15,000 production subsidy for food producers – will almost be impossible to enact into law as long as self-serving bureaucrats such as Cynthia Villar and her cohorts under the Marcos-Duterte administration remain in power.

Amid the worsening crisis on food and agriculture, we need sincere public servants who genuinely understands the plight of Filipinos. Given her track record as a self-serving politician who blatantly uses state power and resources to forward her business interests, we demand Senator Villar to resign from her chairmanship of Senate Committees on Agriculture and Food and Agrarian Reform, and Environment, Natural Resources and Climate Change. # # #

18/10/2022

Some are migrants who lost their jobs overseas and returned home to become farmers, others are families who never left their land. Many fear hunger, while falling into debt.

29/09/2022

A RICE shortage is looming if the government does not address rising input costs and low farmer incomes, rice industry analysts and representatives said.

28/09/2022

Forum to bring national attention to the alarming decline in farmgate prices of palay and draw up urgent measures to respond quickly to avoid further loses on the part of millons of smallholder farmers.

20/09/2022

Grabe ang mura. Surplus naman sa (luya)ginger.

LUYA SURPLUS - P100 PER 5 KILOS

LOOK: This vendor in Aritao, Nueva Vizcaya was seen trying to sell his large supply of ginger at only P100 per 5 kilos. The smaller portions were even sold at P100 per 6 kilos.

According to one of the farmers, they all began their harvest at the same time, leading to a surplus and forcing them to sell at lower prices.

📷 Wilma Baliton

19/09/2022

https://fb.watch/fDTdQISL4E/

11/09/2022

World's second largest importer of rice na daw ang Pinas. How did the Phils arrive in this situation? Dati dito umaangkat sa atin ng bigas ang ibang bansa. 😔😶

The Philippines’s rice imports in January to August have reached 2.719 million metric tons (MMT) and are poised to surpass the 2.777 MMT it imported in 2021. The latest data from the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) data showed that the country’s rice imports during the 8-month period was about…

11/09/2022

PRESS STATEMENT

P22-P25 Buying Price of Palay Is Doable-ARISE

It would only take as little as P1 to P2 pesos add-on in order to enhance the existing buying price of palay and consequently boost rice production thus lessening rice importation.

This is how a network of farmers, fisherfolks and women at the forefront of rural development and food sovereignty advocacy view the initiative of the National Food Authority (NFA) in seeking additional budget in order to make possible the increase of the buying price of palay from its current P19 per/kg to P20/21.

The Alliance for Resilience, Sustainability and Empowerment (ARISE) amplifies the call of the NFA saying should an increase of from P22 per/kg of cleaned palay or P25 for dried palay be pushed through, farmers would at least be earning not less than P10 pesos per kilo. Anything less than P22, according to crop science expert Prof. Ted Mendoza, would badly hurt the farmers. Lugi or break-even lang, Mendoza said.

ARISE Convenor Dir. Arze Glipo is hopeful of the additional fund being sought by NFA from legislators and local government units (LGUs). She believes it will not be a problem for LGUs where to source the fund as the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) is said to have expressed its willingness to lend farmer associations for this initiative.

An amount as little as P1 to P2 pesos will not hurt the purse of our legislators or the LGUs, another ARISE farmer quips. “Napakaliit na sakripisyo nila pero napakalaki ng impact sa mga magsasakang deka-dekada nang iginupo ng kahirapan.”

Boosting the buying price of palay will give local farmers the much needed respite as they struggle against the widespread practice of importation by private traders and the government. The additional funding will not only help the destitute sector get back on its feet but will also pave the way for an improved buffer stock.

Director Glipo also believes it is far more beneficial if the DSWD buys palay directly from the farmers or include farmer families as beneficiaries of ayuda, as they really are deserving of the government’s doleouts.

Farmers in Mindanao area have started harvesting and have expressed support for NFA and ARISE’s call to increase the buying price of palay. Farmer leader Flor Comendador calls on DA for post-harvest facilities including drying equipment and trucks for procurement of fresh palay since they are finding it difficult to bring their produce to the NFA warehouses. As a result, they are oftentimes forced to sell to traders who take advantage of them with lower offer of price.

ARISE recently conducted an assessment forum on the current agriculture situation and the readiness of the present government to address the looming food crisis.

“The bomb ticks every minute. PBMM should heed the call of farmers before this food crisis blows up into a food calamity,” Director Glipo laments.
#30

11/09/2022

Sino maysabing mi kakulangan sa suplay ng bawang?

ITBAYAT, BATANES — Officials in the northernmost province of Batanes on Thursday confirmed that there was an overproduction of local garlic, especially in this town, prompting Gov. Marilou

26/08/2022

“Ang food sovereignty para sa amin ni Inday Sara ay iyong kalagayan ng ating bansa kung saan ang bawat Pilipino ay hindi na magugutom dahil may sapat na silang pagkain sa hapag-kainan (Food sovereignty for me and Inday Sara is the situation when no Filipino will go hungry because they have enough food on the table)”.- BBM Jr., March 17, 2022

Almost two months after being sworn in as the President of the Republic of the Philippines, Bongbong Marcos has yet to issue implementing orders on how his administration will carry out its promise of a P20/kg rice. His policy pronouncements on food security during the SONA raised high hopes for the poor whose earnings have been gobbled up by the sudden increases in prices of food and other basic commodities. Yet his so-called priorities have to be matched with concrete programs and actions. What we have though are the same technocrats in the Department of Agriculture that defended the opening up of the domestic rice market to imports, officials issuing a statement that amending the Rice Tariffication Law is not possible and other apologists sounding off the alarm against farmer leaders and advocates calling for a review and redirection of neo-liberal policies in DA and for strengthening government direct support and subsidy to local farmers minus the rice import tariff-driven RCEF.

In brief, while Pres. Marcos Jr. has rightly pointed out that the next few months will see an escalation of the global food crisis, the lack of decisive actions to support majority if not all rice farmers with subsidized fertilizer, seeds and badly needed cash to help them recover from their huge losses since 2019, as well as the logistics and funds to expand NFA’s palay procurement program, may depict the weakness of the new administration to offer lasting solutions to the food crisis. Is the Marcos Jr presidency then, like its predecessor riding only on populist sentiments? How then can the Philippines achieve rice self- sufficiency and food sovereignty in the near and long term, even as neo-liberal policies and free trade agreements remain deeply embedded the country’s agriculture roadmap?

Indeed, the current global food crisis made worse by the environmental crisis-cum-climate change impacts, creates an opportunity for the agriculture and food sovereignty movement to advance the debate for a new food paradigm and to call for a re-examination of the dominant pathway to development and food security. Do we rely on food imports in a world facing ever intensifying typhoons, floodings and droughts and where conflicts and wars may spell hunger for many? Will agriculture exports in the face of global hunger remain our priority? Or because we are facing not only one but a multiple of crisis repeated time and again, do we have the collective strength to rethink new strategies and depart from the discredited and bankrupt market ideology that have impoverished generations?

20/08/2022

(3rd UPDATE) Social enterprise Rural Rising is selling kilos of local gulay and fruits for just under P500

14/08/2022

Arise and grind.
Commonwealth, Quezon City at the moment.

07/08/2022

Malaki ang papel na ginagampanan ng local government units para makatulong sa pagpapababa ng presyo ng pagkain, partikular ng bigas. Isa ang inisyatibang directang pagbebenta ng agri products sa LGUs at mga publikong institusyon. Kabilang ito sa rekomendasyon ng ARISE Movement at National Task Force For Food Sovereignty na inisyatiba ng Integrated Rural Development Foundation.

https://businessmirror.com.ph/2022/08/03/zambales-local-government-sells-rice-below-%e2%82%a720-per-kilo/

BOTOLAN, Zambales—A program initiated by the local government unit (LGU) in this town has effectively reduced the price of rice sold to residents to less than P20 per kilogram. Botolan Mayor Jun Omar Ebdane said the project allows local folks to buy rice at the discounted price of P100 for…

15/03/2022

NAGISING ako isang umaga na may bagong bike na nakaparada sa aming garahe. I asked my son where it came from or was it the same bike na naka-dismantle sa …

03/03/2022

INIHAYAG ng Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) Regulatory Office na tatanggalin na ang 12 porsiyentomg Value Added Tax (VAT) na isinasama sa buwanang water bill ng mga kostumer. “These …

02/03/2022

MANILA, Philippines — The Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) Regulatory Office on Monday announced that it would penalize water concessionaire Maynilad Water Services Inc. for

01/03/2022

March on!

23/02/2022

Hopeful Thursday