The National Food Authority is poised to exceed its first-half procurement target of 3.08 million 50-kilo bags of palay, aided by the recent decision of the NFA Council to increase the buying price of the national staple.
“At 2.93 million bags, we’re now at 97 percent of our buying target for the first half with the whole month of June left. Farmers in several provinces in northern Luzon have yet to complete their harvest and they’ve appealed to the NFA to continue with our procurement,” NFA acting administrator Larry Lacson said Friday.
On 11 April, the NFA Council raised the procurement price per kilogram of palay to a range of P23 to P30 for clean and dry from between P19 and P23 while the buying price for fresh and wet was increased to P17 to P23 from P16 to P19.
Before the procurement price was raised, the NFA had only bought a total 142,244 bags of palay as private traders raised their buying price to secure rice supply in the face of El Nino.
“We are pleased that the NFA Council’s decision has resulted in a significant increase in our rice buffer stock, especially with the onset of the typhoon season,” said Agriculture Secretary Francisco P. Tiu Laurel Jr.
“We are also happy that our rice farmers, as envisaged by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., are getting a financial windfall from the higher procurement price of the NFA,” the agri chief added.
Sec. Tiu Laurel said the NFA has also started implementing a so-called fastlane to quickly service farmers selling no more than 50 bags of palay.
Acting administrator Lacson said the NFA has only spent half of the P9 billion procurement budget for this year in procuring the additional 2.8 million bags of rice in the last six weeks. Aside from the budget for this year, Lacson said the NFA has P8 billion left over from last year’s procurement outlay to buy more rice stocks.
“Our problem now—and it is a pleasant one—is that we are running out of space in our warehouses, especially in Region II,” said Lacson. In order to make room for additional palay stocks, Lacson has ordered NFA personnel to start milling stocks to supply the 500,000 bags of rice required by the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
As to the still elevated retail price of rice, Sec. Tiu Laurel said the DA and other agencies of government are looking at various ways to reduce the cost of the national food staple to consumers.
