Bringing Down the Price of Rice

The latest program of government to sell cheap rice to a select group of consumers is not sustainable and is already being criticized by those not included as unfair.

The indicated solution to the problem of high rice prices is to increase the domestic production of rice as part of food security; being a staple food item, it should not be subjected to the vagaries of global supply. As a rice importer, we are always vulnerable to this.

However, merely beefing up the production side may not be enough to assure stable rice prices.

As long as rice distribution is significantly in the hands of traders, its price may always be subject to manipulation, not to mention the margin that they normally have as middlemen.

A more sustainable arrangement is for consumers’ cooperatives to directly buy from farmers’ cooperatives.

Farmers and consumers can then split the “economic surplus” that will be taken away from middlemen.

Higher farm-gate price for farmers but lower retail price for consumers.