Rice farmers on Monday urged the Department of Agriculture (DA) to make public documents related to the importation of rice under a commodity loan program from the United States, including the guidelines for testing the rice imports.

In a press briefing in Quezon City on Monday, farmers belonging to the Rice Watch Action Network (R1) urged the DA to be transparent regarding the status of the bidding, procurement, arrival and domestic sale of rice to be imported under the PL 480 program in light of the reported contamination of US rice by genetically modified organisms (GMO).

R1 has expressed concern over the reported moves by Bayer CropScience in the US to extend the previous approval granted to its two rice lines - LLRICE62 and LLRICE06 - to LLRICE601, the genetically modified (GM) rice that contaminated US rice.

We also ask the DA to make public their statement that they will not allow GM rice imports into the country," said R1 lead convenor Jessica Reyes-Cantos.

Elenita C. Daño, a GM expert and member of Third World Network, told reporters that they are keen on finding out whether the DA issued guidelines on how to test the rice imports.

The guidelines are important to us so we could find out what testing protocol would be used. Several non-government organizations (NGOs) have requested a copy of this but the DA has yet to release it," said Daño.

R1 disclosed that the National Food Authority (NFA), the state-run grains trading agency under DA, conducted an initial bidding process for PL480 rice but the bidding purportedly failed due to "very strict testing and certification protocols specified by the Philippine government to suppliers."

The DA has earlier announced that it will tap an independent laboratory to test US rice bound for the Philippines and that the cost for testing it would have to be shouldered by the winning bidder.

This, the department said, is in line with the government's guidelines on the commercialization and importation of GMOs which indicate that all GMOs intended for food, feed and processing has to be approved by the Bureau of Plant Industry on the first shipment.

PL 480 is a commodity loan program under which the US government extends a loan to the Philippines in the form of farm commodities such as rice. The commodity is then monetized and is supposed to be used for improving the country's farm sector.

This year's commodity loan will all come in the form of about 60,000 metric tons of rice valued at $20 million.