The National Food Authority (NFA) continues to procure palay despite the inclement weather, sustaining the favorable prices enjoyed by farmers as it builds up buffer stocks to cover rice requirements in case of emergency.
The NFA has procured 3.5 million 50-kilo bags of palay as at end-June this year, equivalent to 175,000 metric tons and exceeding the agency’s first-half target of 3.36 million metric tons.
NFA procurement in the first half historically represents 30 percent of the national reserves to ensure the Philippines has enough rice supply to sustain it for at least nine days in an emergency. The national daily consumption is estimated at 36,000 MT.
At the moment the NFA has buffer stock, including milled rice, of 149,000 MT, enough to cover four days of the national requirement.
NFA buys palay from Pangasinan, Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Tarlac, Oriental Mindoro, Laguna, Occidental Mindoro, Camarines Sur, Iloilo, Northern Samar and Zamboanga City.
“We continue to buy palay at favorable prices, helping our farmers despite the changing weather and rainfall experienced in many parts of our country… NFA employees are closely coordinating with farmer associations and cooperatives to ensure we are able to buy palay to support our farmers,” said Larry Lacson, NFA administrator.
The NFA said its regional offices and several local government units have palay marketing assistance programs to further strengthen palay procurement and expand opportunities for farmers to increase earnings.
“We are continuously purchasing palay from our local farmers under our price range scheme or PRICERS, as approved by the NFA Council in April where we buy wet palay at P17 to P23 per kilo and clean and dry palay at P23 to P30 per kilo,” Lacson said.
Last April, the NFA Council raised the buying price of palay to P17 to P30 per kilo from P16 to P23 per kilo to help the food agency to compete with private traders.
Following the increase in buying price, the NFA bought over 3.3 million bags of palay versus only 145,000 bags prior to the council decision.
