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The National Food Authority (NFA) said a “favorable” harvest and its buying price range allowed it to raise its purchases of paddy rice in April.

The grains agency said it procured 1.81 million 50-kilo bags or 90,390 metric tons (MT) of palay in April, nearly double the 923,719 bags or 46,185 MT it bought in the previous year.

The NFA noted that it also met its procurement target of 1.15 million bags or 57,440 MT in the reference month.

“Increase in procurement compared to last month is mainly due to favorable harvest this cropping season, and the continuous implementation of the Council-approved Price Range Scheme [PRICERS] for palay procurement activity,” the NFA said in its latest report.

Under the grains agency’s program, the NFA buys clean and dry palay at P23 to P30 per kilo, while the price of fresh and wet palay ranges from P17 to P23 per kilo. This price scheme changes weekly per province.

Meanwhile, the NFA said it had a total rice inventory of 7.9 million bags or 397,206 MT at the end of April.

“It should be noted that NFA’s inventory is 14.8% of the country’s national rice inventory.”

The agency distributed 84,737 bags or 4,236.85 MT of milled rice during the reference month, 18.91 percent of its target of 448,150 bags or 22,407.5 MT, despite the declaration of a food security emergency.

It distributed some 2,582 MT of rice to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Office of Civil Defense (OCD), legislators, and local governments for relief operations and calamity response.

“About 874 MT of rice were distributed to government agencies and local government units (LGU) rice requirement under the Executive Order 51 program”, the NFA said.

It added that 418 MT have been distributed to LGUs under the food security emergency program, which was declared to fast-track the release of rice buffer stocks held by the NFA.

Furthermore, 361 MT have been released to local governments under the food security emergency program.

This year, the NFA is targeting to procure as much as 880,000 MT of palay to meet its new buffer stock requirement of 15 days as stipulated under the amended Rice Tariffication Law (RTL).

Under the amended RTL, the NFA should maintain a buffer stock enough to cover 15 days of national rice consumption, up from the previous nine-day requirement.

Source : businessmirror