THERE is enough rice supply for Davao City even with the onslaught of El Nino phenomenon, an official said.
Rice is one of the most affected crops by the prolonged dry spell, but the National Food Authority (NFA) said that there will be sufficient supply of rice for the whole year.
As this developed, Virgilio Alerta, NFA-Davao City Field Office manager, yesterday assured consumers at the "Kapehan sa Dabaw" at the SM City Annex that no hike in rice prices will be implemented throughout the year.
“There will definitely no increase to be implemented for the rice prices because our supply is sufficient to meet the demand,” Alerta said.
At present NFA rice is being sold at P27 per kilo. As per regulation, one consumer can buy five kilos a day.
Alerta reported that for the Davao City inventory, there are 360,000 bags of regular-milled rice in the city.
Another 320,000 bags of rice imported from Thailand were also delivered by a vessel recently. Apart from these, the private sector has a total of 75,000 bags as of March 23, this year.
For corn, NFA-Davao City has a total of 20,000 bags.
For Davao City, there are 206 accredited retailers operating in the city.
NFA-Davao data for 2015 bared that a total of 1.1 million bags were imported both from Vietnam and Thailand.
“Food security is on top of our agenda. We assure everyone that there will be supply and that there is no need to worry even with the presence of El Nino. Our rice will remain affordable and stable as far as the price is concerned,” he said.
Meanwhile, when asked on the target of the Department of Agriculture for the country to be self-sufficient for rice and other staple food, Alerta was quick to add that at present we are still depending on importation.
Davao Region’s rice producing areas are Davao del Sur (12,000 hectares), Davao del Norte (10,000 hectares), Compostela Valley (12,000 hectares) and Davao Oriental (8,000 hectares).
One hectare of rice planted area is capable of producing some 100 bags of rice.
Data from DA-Davao showed damage to agricultural crops in Davao Region due to the onslaught of El Nino phenomenon has reached P248.2 million as of December 11, 2015.
A total of 38,506.64 metric tons (MT) of both rice and corn had been damaged, covering a total of 12,532.15 hectares.
Of the said figure, 1,035 hectares have been partially destroyed, while 12,854.16 has have been totally damaged, affecting thousands of rice and corn farmers in the region.