Sell to us, NFA urges farmers

As harvest season begins, the National Food Authority (NFA) is appealing to local farmers to sell their palay to the agency to help replenish its rice stock.

In a forecast made by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), this year’s summer crop is expected to yield around 4.67 million metric tons (MT) of palay, 5.65-percent higher than the production in the same period last year at 4.43 million MT.

“If we can get at least 10 percent of this harvest, the NFA can continue to fulfill its commitment to relief agencies, local governments and may even bring back the P27- and P32-per-kilogram rice in the market,” NFA Administrator Jason Aquino said in a statement.

“We are hopeful that we can still buy enough from local farmers to augment our dwindling stocks for food security. This is very important since the arrival of the 250,000 MT of imported rice, which we have requested, has been set for June or about four months from now,” he added.

According to the NFA, the country’s daily rice consumption requirement was now at 640,250 bags of rice a day. With its mandate to have at least a 15-day buffer stock, the agency should have 9.6 million bags at any given time.

However, it has only 1.12 million bags of rice in its warehouses that could last for just 1.7 days.

While procurement is an all-year round activity for the agency, Aquino said the NFA was able to buy only 7,469 bags of palay from local farmers so far this year, mostly from the provinces of Antique, Nueva Vizcaya, Bukidnon and Catanduanes.

Reports from Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura showed palay in Masbate, Isabela and parts of Visayas were being sold at P15 to P19 a kilo.

“Our low procurement price hinders us from buying more. It is not only the task of NFA to ensure food security of the nation, it is the task of everybody, and surely, we cannot do this without the help of our local farmers,” Aquino said.

“Our food security mandate can only be fulfilled if we have sufficient buffer stock stored in our government warehouses to ensure that we have enough for our rice distribution to poor consumers and relief operations,” he added.

NFA is buying palay from farmers at a support price of P17 a kilo so long as these are clean and dry, with additional incentives of up to P1 a kilo for drying, delivery and cooperative development.

Meanwhile, rice traders had been buying palay at a higher price of P18 to P22 a kilo.