MANILA, Philippines - Instead of storing it, why not just give it away?

A farmers' group on Wednesday urged the Aquino administration to just distribute excess rice in National Food Authority’s (NFA) warehouses to the more than 4 million Filipino families that went hungry at least once in the past quarter.

Felix Paz, chairman of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas-Bikol said, distributing the excess rice for free would ensure that it would not go to waste.

“If we are indeed swimming in rice, then the Aquino government should just distribute the excess rice for free so that it will not go to waste. It is the best way to resolve this dilemma and is hitting two birds with one stone. The excess rice will be utilized and the poor will be given food even for just a few days," he said in a statement.

NFA chief Lito Banayo earlier said the previous administration imported P100 million worth of rice even though the nation had enough rice supply for the year.

He said the NFA has created a systems and management team that will look closely into the operations of the agency, especially rice importations. He said the team will investigate allegations of overstocked warehouses, P177 billion debts of NFA since June 30, rice wastage, inability  to help farmers, allegations of anomalies in rice importation, local purchase, contracting of services and selling.

He said the team will study the inventory system to prevent waste and spoilage of stocks, the methods and procedures of selling stocks to ensure these are sold efficiently.

Paz, meanwhile, urged the government to impose a moratorium on land use conversions of rice land to other uses, as well as crop conversions from rice to more high value crops. He said rice lands only account for 10% of the country’s total land area, or about 3.28 million hectares.

"It is sad to note that 90% of our population eats rice every day but such a small percentage of land is now being used to cultivate it,” he said.

He added that one way to eliminate rice importation is to implement genuine agrarian reform, which will allow farmers to own the land. He said 7 out of 10 farmers in the country do not have their own land.