Rice price hikes and hoarding lead to a reduction in its consumption, Adriano Sánchez denounces

Santo Domingo. – The secretary of Agricultural Affairs of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), Adriano Sánchez Roa, denounced that in the year 2025 the per capita consumption of rice in the Dominican Republic decreased by 22.1 pounds, as a result of the sustained price increase, hoarding and a misguided agricultural policy that has directly affected low-income families. The former senator explained that the drop in consumption is the direct consequence of a market distortion, caused by importing merchants who control the available volumes of the cereal to maintain artificially high prices, with the complicity of the State. “With the same money, Dominicans are buying less rice. That’s no coincidence: it’s the result of hoarding and a policy that has abandoned national producers,” he affirmed.

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The PLD leader pointed out that under the protection of the Ministry of Agriculture, hoarding mechanisms were implemented that prevented both national and imported rice from reaching the market in sufficient quantities to cause a price drop. Sánchez Roa indicated that, despite the fact that between 2021 and 2025, 6,950,780.32 quintals of rice were imported, added to the national production, the price of the cereal increased by 115.6%, placing it out of reach of hundreds of thousands of Dominican families.