Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Some rice traders in Tabuk City stop buying palay

Tabuk City, Kalinga - As the prices of rice in the country continue their upward climb, the prices of palay (unhusked rice) in this city have started a steep downward trend dashing the hopes of farmers for a higher income this cropping season.

From all time highs of P17.00 per kilo for fresh palay and PI 8.50 per kilo for dried palay last week, the prices have gone down to P15.00 and P16.50 for fresh and dried palay, respectively, as of this writing.

Worse, half of the local rice traders have stopped buying palay starting early this week alleging the instability of palay prices which they claimed started to manifest starting last weekend when nearly everyday the price in the market went down by as much as P0.50 per kilo a day.

Maxell Co of the Maxell Rice Mill in Magsaysay, this city, alleged that according to their sources, as of press time the price of fresh palay in Isabela where they sell their stocks is PI5.00 per kilo.

"The stocks in my warehouse were bought at P16.00 per kilo so I will be in trouble if the price keeps going down," Co said adding that from what he heard, the downtrend of palay prices in the market is due to the coming into play of the law of supply and demand because of the simultaneous harvest in many places in the country.

Daryl Estranero of the Universal Grains Center in Bulanao Norte, this city, on the other hand claimed that the price in Isabela plunged from P16.00 to P14.50 on April 15 when it rained there so he had no choice but to stop buying.

He also said that one other reason he has stopped buying is that with a large volume of palay already being harvested in many parts of Isabela, the big time rice traders there have tightened their classification procedures.

"We stopped buying because the price is unstable. We thought that the price would stabilize at the new level but we were wrong. It is possible that the price will go back to normal which is P9.40 to P9.70 for fresh and P12.00 for dry," Estranero said.

Regarding the accusation of farmers that local traders are cartelized, Estranero said that they have an organization but the purpose is to maintain uniformity of prices among them and not to take advantage of farmers.

He also denied the speculation of farmers that the local palay traders agreed among themselves to stop buying as a prelude to bringing down the prices declaring that they are just following the current prices in the market because if they don't, they will incur losses.

As for the allegation that local palay traders are preventing outside buyers to deal directly with farmers, Estranero said that local traders pay their taxes and .that there are many farmers who run to the buying stations for their farm inputs.

"There is no problem if outside buyers go directly to the farmers except that it is to us the farmers come to when they are in need," Estranero said.

He challenged the complaining farmers to just put up their own trading business and see if they could take the pressure of the volatile palay trading. **By Estanislao Albano, Jr.