NFA to buy more palay from farmers to cut rice imports
abs-cbnNEWS.com | 11/18/2008 10:02 AM
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In order to reduce wastage and imports, the National Food Authority (NFA) is planning to purchase one million metric tons (MT) of palay (rice grain) from farmers.
With palay secured in warehouses, the NFA said that wastage will be reduced by as much as 15 to 20 percent. This will enable reduction in rice imports, which reached a record high of 2.3 million MT this year. NFA has so far bought 295,185 MT of palay, or one-third of its target.
NFA's buying price for palay, which has been beefed up to P17 per kilo, has helped push rice's traded price in the market to P14-P15 from P9-P12. However, the NFA said that it is aiming to offer the P17 per kilo price to farmers who can produce rice at a higher quality moisture of 14 percent.
Achieving this higher quality may prove to be difficult for farmers who do not have means to dry their rice stocks especially in the dry season. The lack of post-harvest facilities account for 15 to 20 percent of wastage, with farmers believing that it is the government's responsibility to put up such facilities.
NFA's other incentive is to buy lower-quality palay from farmers.
“NFA will buy palay with up to 30 percent moisture content for the benefit of small farmers who find it difficult to dry their produce during the wet season and then sell these to private traders or the NFA,” the NFA said.
Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture has claimed to have opened up more warehouses of its procurement program.
“This massive procurement program will be possible by opening more warehouses to store stocks and setting up more mobile stations to better facilitate buying of palay from farmers during the harvest season, which peaks from October to December,” a DA statement said.
