Only month's supply left of NFA rice

THE National Food Authority (NFA) in Negros Occidental has only a month's worth of milled rice.

NFA-Negros Occidental provincial manager Marianito Bejemino said their rice inventory will last this month and that they are still waiting for the intervention of the national office for the month of April.

Bejemino said 15,000 sacks of rice has arrived at their warehouse last week, adding that rice supply is arriving per program because they are selling the inventory.

Bejemino said they expect the National Government to hasten the rice importation of 200,000 metric tons of rice.

Moreover, he warned the accredited grain retailers about the agency’s “one-strike policy.”

"Whoever is violating the one-strike policy will be immediately acted upon by the NFA because we have our monitoring team who are actively going around the markets to make sure of the proper selling of NFA rice,” Bejemino said.

He said NFA is very particular against rice hoarding and overpricing.

The grains retailers inked a Memorandum of Understanding with the NFA and any violator will be sanctioned.

Also, Bejemino assured the public that the agency has a good quality of rice and that their monitoring team could immediately identify the NFA rice if it is mixed with other varieties.

Bejemino said a prevailing increase of P2 to 4 per kilogram in the prices of commercial rice sold in local markets was noted recently by the monitoring team.