NFA asked to use funds to buy farmers’ produce

The government should devote billions of pesos earmarked for the country’s rice stockpile to buying home-grown grains instead of tying these up with supply agreements with foreign suppliers, according Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (Sinag).

The umbrella group of agri-business organizations said this yesterday as the National Food Authority said it could not yet afford to buy palay due to high farm gate prices while the Department of Agriculture reiterated the need to rethink importation plans.

Sinag chair Rosendo So told the Inquirer the NFA Council needed to explain why it had apparently entered into an agreement with Vietnamese suppliers for shipments of up to 3 million metric tons to be provided over the next two years.

Citing Sinag sources from both in the Philippines and Vietnam, So said Hanoi was primed to deliver such volume under an agreement that was made in January and covered the period up to the end of 2018.

He said this arrangement was no secret and had been reported in international media, including those in Vietnam and China.

“At $380 per ton in current prices, that’s P57 billion pesos, which may be better used to buy palay from about half a million farmers,” So said.

“We challenge both factions of the NFA to help local farmers instead of the Vietnamese rice industry,” he added.

In a statement, NFA Administrator Jason Laureano Y. Aquino said farm gate prices of palay had increased steadily as harvest for the summer crop had yet to peak.

Based on NFA monitoring, palay was fetching as high as P22.60 a kilo in Davao del Norte while data from the Philippine Statistics Authority set the national average at P18.60 a kilo in the last week of March.

Aquino said this was good for the farmers who were enjoying higher income, but this also meant the NFA would not be able to buy as much grains as it wanted because the agency was not authorized to buy above the price cap of P17 per kilo.

The NFA aims at buying 4,607,350 cavans of palay this year. As of the end of March, the agency had bought 134,355 cavans or 21 percent of the target.

According to So, the chair of Sinag, palay prices would regularly go down as harvest time peaks. The PSA says harvest of the dry-season crop peaks every April.

So said that at such time, the local market would have more supply of palay and it would be the right time for the NFA to buy for its buffer.

“Farmers have no ability to store grains for a long time unlike traders who have warehouses so they would quickly dispose of their harvest,” said So. “If the NFA is around, farmers would sell to them. If they’re not present, farmers would of course sell to private traders.”

Aquino said the NFA “continues to intensify its palay buying activities” to beef up its food security stocks for the lean months.

“We have 413 buying stations strategically positioned nationwide and mobile procurement teams deployed regularly especially in far flung areas to accommodate farmers produce,” Aquino said.

“Our cereal procurement fund (CPF) and other logistical requirements were already in place,” he added.