Palay procurement poised to exceed H1 target, says NFA

The National Food Authority (NFA) on Friday said it expects to exceed its palay procurement target in the first half of the year after the NFA Council increased the agency’s buying price of the grain staple.

In a news release, the NFA said its target of 3.08 million bags (50 kilos each) of palay to be purchased from local farmers in the January to June period will be surpassed as total procured bags to-date stands at 97% of the goal.

“At 2.93 million bags, we’re now at 97% 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 appeal to the NFA to continue with our procurement,” said NFA acting administrator Larry Lacson.

For his part, Agriculture Secretary and NFA Council chairman Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said the “NFA Council’s decision has resulted in a significant increase in our rice buffer stock, especially with the onset of the typhoon season.” 

On April 11, 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.

The NFA said, prior to the procurement price’s increase, the agency only had bought a total 142,244 bags of palay as private traders raised their buying price to secure rice supply in the face of El Niño.

“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,” said Tiu Laurel.

The Agriculture chief added that the NFA has also started implementing a so-called fastlane to quickly service farmers selling no more than 50 bags of palay.

Lacson, moreover, 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, the acting NFA chief said the agency has P8 billion left 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. 

To make room for additional palay stocks, the acting NFA chief has ordered the agency’s personnel to start milling stocks to supply the 500,000 bags of rice required by the Department of Social Work and Development.—AOL, GMA Integrated News