Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri visited Tuguegarao City on October 21 and led the ceremonial distribution of 150 sacks rice assistance and 400 modular isolation tents to villagers in a program at the city hall on October 21 here.
He vowed to help farmers lobby for lower prices of fertilizers and seeds.
“I raised on alarm on this. The DA should find a way to solve this problem… the urea fertilizer is P900 a sack last month but it pegs at P1,800 or almost P2,000 this month,” Zubiri said.
He cited the Agri-Agra Law which exempted value-added tax for fertilizer products for both imported and domestically produced. He noted the low farmgate prices of agricultural products, which is “detrimental to the farmers due to the high prices of inputs.”
The imported agricultural inputs should be sold “at cost” as importing taxes have been exempted, he said. (VILLAMOR VISAYA JR./PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER NEWS CORRESPONDENT AND GMA7/PHILIPPINE NEWS AGENCY STRINGER)