Agriculture Secretary Francisco P. Tiu Laurel, Jr. will gather support from farmers cooperatives and food producers to help the Marcos administration supply more affordably-priced food to ease the financial burden of Filipino consumers.
Dubbed as “KADIWA sa BayanAnihan,” the initiative stems from government’s well-received P29 and Rice-for-All programs. It seeks to provide lower-priced basic goods and agricultural products by directly selling them via KADIWA centers across the country.
“lWe’re confident we can harness the Bayanihan Spirit in our drive to help fellow Filipinos cope with rising food prices. Aside from helping consumers, farmers cooperatives will have a rent-free venue to sell their produce while food manufacturers can do this as their corporate social responsibility project,” said Sec. Tiu Laurel.
The DA expects “Kabayani” farmers groups and food companies to retail basic food items and farm produce like vegetables, eggs, chicken, pork, fish, sugar, spices, canned goods, cooking oil, soy sauce, vinegar and noodles at wholesale prices.
“Whatever funds KADIWA centers and the Food Terminal Inc. make from this ‘Kabayani’ initiatives will be utilized to help sustain the P29 rice program,” Sec. Tiu Laurel said.
As designed, the P29 rice program aims to sell subsidized rice to 6.9 million households, equivalent to approximately 34 million Filipinos, A large-scale trial is currently ongoing to gather essential data on demand, supply, and logistics. In the first two weeks of the large-scale trial, when P29 per kilo rice were sold in selected KADIWA centers, over 12.7 metric tons of rice were sold to more than 25,000 households.
