Lazalita, also a public information officer, explained the rice supply is allotted for the six-month period.
As of Tuesday, there are 40,000 sacks of rice stored in the NFA field office in Dumaguete City. The 40,000 sacks were part of the 50,000 deliveries on February and March this year from NFA Manila.
Lazalita said the coming 200,000 bags are more than enough for the whole province in the next six months.
He explained the province only needs 30 percent of 200,000 bags or 60,000 bags. The other 70 percent will serve as reserve stocks.
The NFA has also allotted another 60,000 bags for the school in the next school year.
However, Lazalita admitted he does not have records on the total percentage of the population's rice consumption in Negros Oriental. But he assured the supply of NFA rice is more than enough for the whole province.
"Kasagaran man god naa silay kaugalingon abot sa ilang umahan," he said adding, "Ang uban sab mais ilang ginakaon." (Most of them have their own supplies coming from their rice farms.) (Others eat only corn grits.)
Commercial rice shortage
The local Bureau of Agriculture Statistics (BAS) office noticed the shortage of commercial rice in Negros Oriental.
However, Feliciso Barrios, Provincial Agriculture Statistician, said the province is not the only one experiencing shortage but the whole country as well.
He further said this is the very reason the price of commercial rice is increasing almost every week.
The on-going port strikes also affected the crises of commercial rice.
Cristita Omnus, a BAS market reporter, said commercial rice increased from P1 to P2 per kilo weekly. Last week premium rice was P29 but now its P31 per kilo, she added.
As of Tuesday, commercial rice ranges from P28 to P42 per kilo.
Intensifying of rice production
On the other hand, the Department of Agriculture (DA) in Negros Oriental has already intensified its rice productions in the province.
Alvin Blaza, chief crops division and provincial rice production coordinator, admitted the annual rice production could not support the whole province.
In fact, he said, the production rate of rice is below the population growth rate in the province.
According to the record, the province has the population growth of 2.08 percent per year, while rice production rate is only 1.8 to 2 percent per annum.
Blaza stressed they expected to harvest a total of 44,519 metric tons this year. However, 72,342 metric tons of rice are needed this year.
He explained that Negros Oriental has a shortage of 38.46 percent in rice production. The province covers 14,542 hectares of rice farms but harvests only 3.38 metric tons per hectare.
With this, the local government has intensified the production to 4 metric tons per hectare using high breed rice seeds.
The province needs more than 20 hectares of rice fields to supply its growing population. The 2,000 hectares of idle land in Tamlang valley will boost up the rice production in the province.
