THE National Food Authority (NFA) has clarified that all its rice stocks kept in strategically-located warehouses nationwide are maintained in good condition at all times.
NFA-Western Visayas, in its Facebook post, said these stocks are ready for release to calamity victims as required under the law.
Republic Act 11203, or the Rice Import and Export Liberalization Law signed in February this year, mandates the NFA to maintain buffer stocks good for 15 to 30 days of daily consumption requirement to meet contingencies during calamities and emergencies.
At present, the NFA holds about 4.5 million bags of rice.
These are on top of the 6.4 million bags of palay equivalent to 8.5 million bags of rice that will last for 13 days based on the national consumption rate of 651,860 bags.
NFA Administrator Judy Carol Dansal, in the same post, said they abide by what is dictated by the agency’s mandate.
“We store and handle our stocks following good warehouse-keeping protocols in all our warehouses across the country so that we can immediately respond to any need for rice supply especially during calamities and emergencies,” she added.
Meanwhile, NFA-Western Visayas said the agency continues to buy palay from farmers to provide them a ready market for their produce at reasonable price.
“We conduct procurement operations on a year-round basis. We have more than 300 buying stations across the country that are open daily where farmers can deliver their produce and avail of our support price and incentives,” Dansal added.
The NFA currently buys palay at a support price of P17 per kilogram plus P3 per kilogram buffer stocking incentive, P0.20 per kilogram drying incentive, P0.20 per kilogram delivery incentive, and P0.30 per kilogram in cooperative development incentive fee.
This means that NFA’s maximum buying price for clean and dry palay is P20.70 per kilogram for farmer cooperatives and P20.40 per kilogram for individual farmers.
It can be recalled that the NFA Council earlier approved an increase in NFA’s selling price to government relief agencies and local government units (LGUs) to P37 per kilogram from the previous P32 per kilogram.
This enables the agency to recover from further losses as the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of the law on rice tariffication also requires the agency to operate with financial stability.
The post stated that it is estimated that the NFA spends an additional P12.30 per kilogram to mill, transport and market the local palay it procures plus P2 per kilogram overhead costs.
At the agency’s palay buying price of P20.70 per kilogram and considering the 65-percent milling recovery rate, processing fee, trucking fee and other fees, break-even cost would be at P35 per kilogram including overhead costs.
Dansal said they assure the public that the NFA is compliant with its mandate of maintaining a safe and sufficient buffer stock for any emergencies the country may face.
“We will never allow our stocks to rot or deteriorate beyond what is fit for human consumption,” she said, adding that “we will continue supporting our farmers through our continuous procurement operations throughout the year.”
In Negros Occidental, days are numbered for Negrenses to avail the P27 per kilogram government rice as supply will only last until this month.
By the time NFA-Negros Occidental has no more rice to distribute, its concentration would then be on palay procurement for buffer stocking.