MANILA — Beginning August 13, registered farmers will be able to buy rice at P20 per kilo from National Food Authority (NFA) warehouses as part of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s flagship “Benteng Bigas, Meron Na!” program.

“It is only fair that those who produce the rice we eat have access to the P20-per-kilo rice we make available to vulnerable sectors, including minimum wage earners,” said Agriculture Secretary Francisco P. Tiu Laurel Jr.

To facilitate this, KADIWA-FTI booths will be set up in NFA warehouses. The program will launch initially in Regions 2 and 3.

Under the new setup, farmers listed under the Department of Agriculture’s Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA) will be allowed to purchase up to 10 kilos of rice per month. There are currently about 2.9 million rice farmers registered under the RSBSA.

Tiu Laurel said the department is fine-tuning logistics to also include the country’s 2.8 million registered fisherfolk in the program.

Currently, subsidized P20 rice is available at KADIWA ng Pangulo centers, select government agencies, and local government units. These rice stocks are sourced by Food Terminal Inc. from the NFA, which by law can only procure rice from local farmers to maintain its buffer stock.

Farmers may opt to avail of their monthly allocation in bulk. “This means that if they want, they could buy a 50-kilo sack of the P20 rice to cover their allocation from August to December,” said Tiu Laurel, who also chairs the NFA Council.

If all registered farmers avail of their monthly entitlement, about 520,000 50-kilo bags of rice will be released monthly from NFA warehouses. To replenish these, the agency will need to buy two bags of palay for every bag of rice sold—providing more market opportunities for farmers and helping stabilize farm-gate prices.

President Marcos has directed the Department of Agriculture to expand the program to cover 15 million households—approximately 60 million Filipinos—by 2026, with a goal to sustain it through the end of his term in 2028.

Tiu Laurel added that an P18 billion budget has already been approved by the President to support the program in 2026. This will be in addition to the P9 billion proposed budget for NFA’s palay procurement under the 2025 national budget.