NFA claims Zamboanga rice crisis ‘resolved’

The National Food Authority (NFA) on Monday said it was able to beef up the supply of government-subsidized rice to 4,000 bags a day from 2,000 bags previously in Zamboanga.

As a result, the rice crisis in Zamboanga has been “resolved” with 80 percent of the area’s daily need now being met by the government, the NFA noted.

The 4,000 bags are equivalent to about 80 percent of the region’s 5,340 bags of daily rice requirement.

“The rice crisis in Zamboanga has been declared solved, but NFA continues to distribute its P27/kilogram well-milled rice in the market even as cheaper commercial rice stocks are also flooding in,” the NFA said.

“For the first time in many years, indigenous peoples, small farmers, fisherfolk, island dwellers, the urban poor, those living in resettlement areas—the real marginalized sectors of our society—are happy and thankful that they are now having access to good quality, low-priced NFA rice,” said NFA Administrator Jason Aquino.

Spikes in prices of rice were recorded in Zamboanga, prompting the declaration of a state of calamity in light of a rice shortage.

Advocacy group Bantay Bigas said last week prices of commercial rice in several areas in the country reached as high as P80 per kilogram, compared with NFA’s P27 per kg.

“We do not expect to immediately lower the prices of commercial rice in the area, but with the steady presence of NFA rice, we are providing an alternative cheaper but good quality rice ... for our poor and marginalized sectors,” Aquino said .

The Philippines in May ordered a supply of 250,000 MT of rice to increase the stock in the country — 130,000 MT from Vietnam, and the remaining balance of 120,000 MT from Thailand.

It also announced an additional importation of 250,000 MT which would be done by private firms.

The National Food Authority (NFA) said, however, that shipments have yet to be fully released to retailers given the inclement weather conditions in the country.

The rice problems besetting the country today were consequences of rejecting the 2017 proposal of the NFA to increase its buying price for palay and importing the commodity at the proper time to avoid depleting the stock supply, the NFA noted.

Now there are a number of problems, including thin buffer stocks, wrong timing of import arrivals, and high prices of commercial rice, it said.

When imported rice arrives at an inappropriate time, the results are delays in unloading the commodity from ships due to bad weather and inflation, the NFA added. —VDS, GMA News