The Department of Agriculture (DA) announced on Saturday that they are coordinating with the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) regarding posts on social media claiming that farmers committed suicide due to low rice prices. According to them, the reports are untrue.
DA Spokesperson Arnel de Mesa said in a forum that based on their investigation, this information is false. He said, “Our secretary has already investigated that and it has been proven to be false.” He stressed that the reports about farmers committing suicide are false, so he advised the public not to immediately believe unverified information.
A report from Magsaka Party-list chairman Argel Joseph Cabatbat on March 18 said that three farmers in Nueva Ecija committed suicide due to the price of rice reaching only P15/kg or less. According to de Mesa, these types of news are not appropriate to spread because they are a type of disinformation that can give people the wrong impression and damage their perspective on the situation of farmers.
According to de Mesa, the price of palay in the country remained stable, with dry and clean palay at P24/kg, while fresh and wet palay at P18/kg. The Philippine Statistics Authority showed that in February, the average farmgate price of dry palay in Central Luzon, including Nueva Ecija, was P19.46/kg.
Although some farmers say they are struggling due to low rice prices and the impact of rice importation, according to de Mesa, the Philippines has recently reduced its rice importation, which is now at 400,000 metric tons (MT) per month, or 1.2 million MT for the entire quarter last year. De Mesa also expects this year's harvest to be good and production will return to 2.1 million metric tons of rice.
