WITH an adjusted farmgate price, more farmers are starting to veer away from lowballing traders, according to the National Food Authority (NFA) as it boasted of getting closer to its target procurement for the first half of the year.
According to NFA, they are set to surpass its goal of buying 3.08 sacks.
Citing figures, the agency said that as of May, the total palay purchase has reached 2.93 million sacks, which translates to 97% of its target procurement for the first six months of the current year, “which may not have been possible if not for the higher buying price approved by the NFA Council in April.”
The NFA Council earlier raised its price tag from P23 to P30 per kilo for clean and dry palay, which according to NFA is so much higher as compared to the previous buying rate which stands from P19 to P23 per kg.
The agency also emphasized that their procurement also covers fresh and wet palay which they are buying at P23 per kilo – P7 higher than the previous buying rate.
“Farmers in several provinces in northern Luzon have yet to complete their harvest and they’ve appealed to the NFA to continue with our procurement,” NFA acting administrator Larry Lacson said in a statement.
Prior to the raise in its buying price, NFA admitted only being able to buy 142,244 bags of palay as private traders offered a peso higher to secure the supply.
With sufficient buffer stocks, the NFA said they’d start milling what has been bought from local farmers will be processed soon to meet the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s target of 500,000 bags of rice.
Lacson said the NFA still has a P4.5 billion fund to be used in future purchases of local farm yields. (ANGEL F. JOSE)
