Arroyo to observe palay buying in Pangasinan

BINALONAN, Pangasinan – President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will observe Friday the palay-procurement operations of the National Food Authority, the government agency which buys the palay harvest of rice farmers in eastern Pangasinan. The President will proceed to the NFA warehouse and buying station along the MacArthur Highway here after a visit to the construction site of the Urdaneta City Civil Plaza, south of Binalonan town, a Palace announcement said. President Arroyo is expected to arrive at 11 a.m. at the NFA warehouse where she will be met by Binalonan Mayor Ramon Guico, president of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines, and NFA officials. She will be shown the operations of the NFA station from the procurement of rice, the unloading of palay from NFA trucks to the various stages of quality control, including measurement and weighing, and the determination of the palay’s moisture content. Palay with the least moisture content commands a higher price than those that still require mechanical drying by the NFA. President Arroyo will also check the stockpile of palay and milled rice. The NFA buying station here has bought a total of 400,000 cavans of palay from farmers of eastern Pangasinan over the last four months. Half of the total inventory is stored in the NFA warehouse here. The NFA’s palay procurement target in eastern Pangasinan, which covers 22 towns and one city, is one-half million cavans during the four-month period. The NFA buys palay at the government support price of P17 per kilogram for “clean and dry" palay. Ten percent of rice farmers in this part of Pangasinan now sell their produce to the NFA, according to NFA officer Nick Rosario. Some 170 farmers’ cooperatives in eastern Pangasinan with about 5,000 members are accredited to sell palay to the NFA warehouse here and the other NFA warehouses in the towns of Rosales, Villasis, Natividad, San Quintin and Asingan. - OPS/GMANews.TV