National Food Authority – Community Partnering towards an Ensured Food Security Logistics in Occidental Mindoro

Rice is a highly political commodity as it is the main staple of the country. It has always been at the forefront of agricultural policies in government. Most of the strategies focus on fostering food self-sufficiency, providing rice farmers with high incomes, and making prices affordable to consumers. On February 14, 2019, President Rodrigo R. Duterte signed the Rice Tariffication Law (RTL) titled “An Act liberalizing the importation, exportation, and trading of rice, lifting for the purpose the quantitative import restriction on rice, and for other purposes”. This is also known as the Rice Liberalization Act or Republic Act No. 11203, which amends the Agricultural Tariffication Act of 1996 that imposed tariffs on agricultural imports except for rice. In order to ensure that our local farmers are able to cope with the competition among the commercial imported rice as stipulated in the liberalization act on rice as a primary commodity, NFA was given the function to ensure that farmers’ produce is still well accommodated as buffer stocks during emergencies and disasters. The main challenge that this capstone project would like to address is the difficulties confronted by NFA as it struggles to find enough storage logistics in the areas during the procurement period season. Storage capacity is one of the most important logistics required for palay procurement operation. Establishing a collaborative program between the NFA and the community stakeholders ensures that there will be enough rice for the people, and that supply should always be maintained at its optimal level of buffer stock. This collaboration shall lead to an innovative measure to strengthen the community’s awareness of the problem regarding insufficient warehouse logistics, thereby would lead to innovative efforts such as, but not limited to, active community participation and empowerment. This study concludes that a proactive approach of orientation coupled with a positive advocacy drive can achieve collaborative governance and synergies among the stakeholders to face the challenges in the public sector. It is very important to recognize and include the different values and perspectives of the multi-stakeholders to be able for them to appreciate the significance of the project and policy guidelines being implemented. Collaboration in this project has been touted as a valuable tool of innovation. Community partnering can develop and establish development opportunities. The government as a backbone of the society could not do it alone, the participation of the community is very critical to materialize an impact project.  However, embracing collaborative governance acknowledges that it is no easy. There are always impediments to fulfilling it, hence, it is a challenge to build a more compassionate atmosphere. Being more persistent in advocating this mechanism is the central factor to attain a collaborative environment.