“Save The Rice Granary” launched at the farmer camp-out in Metro Manila
Quezon City | Peasant organizations from Central Luzon launched the “Save The Rice Granary” campaign at their ongoing camp-out in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR). The campaign calls for an immediate halt to the large-scale land use conversion that has devastated rice farms and displaced farming communities across the country.
Over 3.8 million hectares of private farmlands have been lost due to conversion projects since the 1990s. Central Luzon, the country’s rice granary producing nearly 20% of national rice output, has been among the hardest hit. In provinces like Tarlac and Bulacan, vast tracts of once-productive rice lands have been taken over by projects from Ayala, Aboitiz, and other major developers.
The farmers also raised alarm over the proposed National Land Use Act (NaLUA), which they warn will further institutionalize and fast-track land use conversion by removing agricultural land as a protected category and classifying it instead under “productive use” alongside commercial and industrial zones. They also asserted that the call to repeal the Rice Liberalization Law remains urgent and correct, as the law has led to the collapse of local palay prices, worsened the dependence on imported rice, and destroyed the livelihoods of millions of rice farmers. They stressed that any campaign to “save the rice granary” must include reversing liberalization policies that have eroded national food security and the self-sufficiency of the countryside.
Through the “Save The Rice Granary” campaign, farmers vow to resist land grabbing and push for genuine agrarian reform, the repeal of DAR Administrative Order No. 1 (2019) that accelerates conversion, and the passage of pro-farmer measures like the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB) and the Rice Industry Development Act (RIDA).
updates from the peasant movement of the Philippines 