THE Department of Agriculture (DA) said aggressive action is needed to stabilize food prices after they rose during the December holidays.
In a statement on Tuesday, Agriculture Secretary Francisco P. Tiu Laurel, Jr. said that while rice prices remain low, holiday demand, weather damage, and supply issues pushed up December food inflation overall.
“The DA must move faster — tightening market monitoring, accelerating production, swiftly deploying available stocks, and expanding safety-net support like the P20 rice program to blunt price spikes,” he was quoted as saying in the statement.
Food inflation accelerated to 1.2% in December from 0.3% in November. A year earlier, the rate had been 3.5%.
Inflation for households in the bottom 30% of the income table was also 1.1%, ending a six-month streak of deflation.
Rice prices fell 12.3% year on year in December against a 15.4% drop in November. Vegetable, tuber and plantain prices accelerated 11.6% from 4% a month earlier.
Other staples, including flour, bakery products, pasta, fish, and ready-to-eat food products, also accelerated in terms of price growth.
Partly offsetting these gains were softer inflation in meat, dairy products, eggs and oils and fats. Sugar and confectionery prices, meanwhile, declined year on year.
Food accounted for nearly a quarter of December’s headline inflation, contributing 0.4 percentage point.
To ease the inflation burden, the DA said it is expanding the reach of its P20-per-kilo rice program to up to 15 million households, or roughly 60 million people, by the end of 2026.
The subsidized-rice program is intended to improve access to the staple grain for vulnerable members of society.
The DA said the expansion will be accompanied by production support to address both seasonal demand surges and weather-related supply disruptions. — Vonn Andrei E. Villamiel