MANILA – Eighteen warehouses of the National Food Authority (NFA) across Central and Northern Luzon opened on Wednesday to rice farmers and farm workers as part of the “Benteng Bigas, Meron Na!” Rice Project, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s flagship program to make rice more affordable for those who produce it.

Eligible rice farmers—those tilling two hectares or less—and registered farm workers under the Department of Agriculture’s Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA) can now buy rice at P20 per kilo, up to 10 kilos monthly or a 50-kilo sack to cover their allocation from August to December 2025.

“Based on RSBSA data, around five million rice farmers and workers will qualify once this program is fully rolled out,” Agriculture Secretary Francisco P. Tiu Laurel Jr. said. “This is one of the many steps we are taking to ease the burden of those who feed our nation and help secure our food supply.”

To support the distribution, KADIWA ng Pangulo and Food Terminal Inc. booths will be set up in NFA warehouses to sell P20-per-kilo rice sourced from palay purchased directly from Filipino farmers.

Tiu Laurel said the program will soon expand to cover 2.8 million RSBSA-registered fisherfolk, and eventually reach other parts of the country.

The subsidized rice initiative was previously limited to senior citizens, solo parents, persons with disabilities, 4Ps beneficiaries, and later minimum wage earners. Marcos has ordered the Department of Agriculture to scale it up to benefit around 15 million households—or roughly 60 million Filipinos—by 2026, with the goal of sustaining it until the end of his term in June 2028.

The president has approved an P18 billion budget for the 2026 rollout, in addition to a proposed P9 billion NFA palay procurement budget for 2025.