The rise in the price of rice and the alleged speculation about the product continue to be the talk of the grass chain. This time, it is the industrial rice sector that has spoken out following accusations emanating from the agricultural sector that blamed it for creating instability in the market by stockpiling produce and causing shortages.

Juan Pablo Zúñiga, president of the Corporation of Rice Industrialists of Ecuador (Corpcom), which represents 35 companies in the sector, rejected the accusations and assured that “the issue of high prices originates from the same field.”

The support price for rice is only applied between producers and piladoras, now some get up to $53 per bag compared to the official $32.50

“Price growth is not happening in the industry, most industries have extremely low stocks, most of them do not have enough even until the fifteenth of June,” said Zúñiga, who expressed regret that many farmers ask the industry for higher prices than they currently receive.

The minimum support price for rice in force in the country is $32.50 per 220-pound bag of short-grain rice and $34.50 per bag of long-grain rice, but the National Rice Corporation (Corpnoarroz) admitted that in Last few weeks producers get up to 53 dollars per bag in pillers. The price has been in effect since April 2022, and this year the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG) has not yet set a new value.

Returning to the state of the industry, the Corpcom chief assured that his sector does not have the level of stocks it should have at the end of the winter harvest. Zúñiga explained that this harvest, in normal times, starts in mid-April and lasts until the beginning of July, however this year the industrial sector barely had rice in the first three weeks of May.

“Since then it’s gone downhill, until today it’s practically zero, a little bit of rice being harvested in the field, obviously there are a few industries behind it to be able to get it to meet their obligations to customers, but it’s not a matter of industrial speculation of the sector”, repeated the representative of industrialists, who assured that the sector determined that at the end of the first half of the year, there is an estimate of losses of 40,000 hectares of rice crops, which represents two months’ consumption.

This differs from the figure published by MAG, which showed this week that the storm affected 18,000 hectares, although Zúñiga assured that the collection of information from the union was compared with the state’s portfolio and that producers were also involved.

However, the leader assured that the industrial sector will capture all the rice produced locally so that farmers are not affected, but did not rule out the possibility of importing rice in case of shortage of supplies to guarantee food sovereignty. This option was also put forward by MAG this week as an alternative if there is a shortage.

The Ministry of Agriculture points out that there is no technical justification for the increase in the price of rice

Faced with this possibility, Zúñiga clarified that the industrial sector does not promote imports just to get a product that is perceived to be cheaper abroad, assuring that currently the international price of rice is high, in addition to the fact that organizing logistical issues is also a problem for the industrial sector , the availability of ships so that imports can be carried out.

“The other alternative is to do nothing and cut off the supply from the market, but that would be totally irresponsible… It is not a matter of promoting imports just because, yes, we are promoting imports because there is a drop in production, which has already happened. in the semester we are finishing and it may be worse in the second semester, but the authority will be the one who will analyze the numbers and make decisions, we present information and our proposals”, concluded Zúñiga.