The National Irrigation Administration (NIA) Kalinga has begun rolling out sales of its fixed-price rice produced from the contract farming program launched earlier this year.
The rice, which sells for P29 a kilo at a fixed price, is available for priority targets from more vulnerable and needy sectors, including senior citizens, persons with disabilities, indigents, and solo parents who may buy up to 10 kilograms of rice each upon showing their identification cards.
Some 5,000 10-kilogram bags of contract-farmed rice are available for purchase, according to the NIA.
Under the contract farming program, members of irrigators’ associations (IAs) who enter into contracts with NIA-CAR receive P50,000 worth of farm inputs per hectare. In return, the agency purchases the harvested crop at a price equivalent to five metric tons per hectare. The rice is then sold through NIA-CAR’s Kadiwa stores at a fixed price of P29 per kilogram, giving consumers access to good quality affordable rice.
Currently, the program covers 496 hectares of rice farms, primarily in the provinces of Kalinga and Apayao. So far, about 10 percent of these areas have successfully completed their harvest.
Data from the Department of Agriculture – Cordillera Administrative Region (DA-CAR) shows that Kalinga farmers produce an average of five tons of rice per hectare, while Apayao yields between seven and eight tons per hectare. Both figures surpass the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) 2022 national average of 4.17 metric tons per hectare.
Looking ahead, NIA-CAR aims to increase the coverage of farm contracts to 2,700 hectares by the end of next year. This expansion would boost the availability of low-cost, fixed-price rice by more than five times, helping to stabilize rice prices in the region.
