The Department of Agriculture (DA) began yesterday releasing rice stock from the National Food Authority (NFA) to local government units (LGUs) under the food security emergency.
This measure aims to rein in unusual spikes in the price of the staple grain, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said.
He officially handed over rice supplies to San Juan City Mayor Francisco Javier Zamora, president of the Metro Manila Council and chairman of the Regional Peace and Order Council, in a ceremony held at the NFA warehouse in Valenzuela City.
Laurel said the NFA will sell the rice to the LGUs at P33 per kilo, and the LGUs will sell it to the public at a suggested price of P35 per kilo.
The NFA rice may be made available to the public next week, Laurel said.
NFA said that it received 67 letters of intent from LGUs that will sell the rice to consumers.
The agency said it plans to release 25,000 metric tons of rice each month throughout the food security emergency period, but it said such volume could be increased if needed.
Laurel said that in order to purchase rice from the NFA, LGUs will need to coordinate with the Food Terminal Inc. (FTI) and come up with a letter of intent, along with a memorandum of agreement and a purchase order.
“If we wait for the procurement time of LGUs, then we will not be able to start this program as soon as possible. That is why FTI is here, they will be giving credit to our LGUs for 30 days so that they can already get the stock from the NFA and start selling,” the DA secretary added.
Meanwhile, Zamora said in the case of San Juan City, the LGU will shoulder the logistics and add-on costs for the rice to be delivered to their locality so that his constituents can buy the NFA rice at P35 per kg.
Zamora said they will implement a pre-registration process for those who want to purchase NFA rice and ensure that the buyers are legitimate consumers.
Camarines Sur’s second district Representative Luis Raymund Villafuerte was also present at the event. He said his province is the sixth top producer of rice, but will also be taking part in the program.
Villafuerte said such a move is justified since the farmers in Camarines Sur are also consumers who will benefit from the low-priced rice. The LGU also plans to shoulder the hauling cost.
“This is just the beginning. We expect more local government units to participate in this effort, for the benefit of consumers and also rice farmers. With the P9 billion allocated by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for NFA’s rice procurement this year and the remaining funds from last year’s record purchases, we aim to buy even more palay from farmers,” said Laurel, who chairs the NFA Council, the policy-making board of the NFA.
On February 3, the DA declared a food security emergency for rice owing to an “extraordinary” spike in rice prices in the country.
The declaration, under Department Circular No. 3, “ allows us to release rice buffer held by the National Food Authority to stabilize prices and ensure that rice, a staple food for millions of Filipinos, remains accessible to consumers,” Laurel said in a statement.
The DA reiterated that apart from providing low-priced rice, the program is also a way to free up storage space so that the NFA can procure palay during the current harvest season.
Last year, the NFA Council raised the palay procurement price range to P23-P30 per kilo of clean and dry palay and P17 per kg of wet palay. Previously, the palay buying prices ranged from P16 to P23 per kg.
Based on DA’s monitoring of public markets in the National Capital Region, local well-milled rice sold for P40 to P54 per kg on Monday while regular milled rice went for P35 to P49 per kg.
Imported well-milled rice was selling for P44 to P45 per kg while the imported regular milled was priced at a range of P38 to P46 per kg.
Special variety imported rice fetched P51 to P62 and premium rice, P48 to P58.
A special variety of local rice was selling for P55 to P64 per kg while premium rice went for P48 to P61 per kg.
