Cabinet to study NFA plan to raise rice purchase price
THE National Food Authority (NFA) will ask the government’s economic managers to greenlight its plan to raise the purchase price of unmilled rice, or palay, by P5, after the NFA Council deferred action on the proposal last week.
“We presented the proposal during the NFA Council meeting last Friday (Sept. 26) but, initially, the council did not authorize it,” Grains Marketing Operations Division Rocky L. Valdez told reporters this week in Quezon City.
“Since there might be a major impact on inflation, it is necessary to defer to the judgment of the government’s economic managers,” he added.
Mr. Valdez said the Cabinet Secretary, Leoncio B. Evasco, Jr., who chairs the Council, asked the NFA to formally submit the proposal to his office for the matter to be raised before the Cabinet.
“So the NFA buying price for rice stays at P17 per kilogram plus incentives for both individual farmers and cooperatives,” Mr. Valdez said.
The NFA has said it faces challenges competing with private rice traders in procuring rice from farmers.
During a budget hearing in Congress last month, the NFA unveiled its 2018 plan to procure 1.2 million metric tons (MT) of palay, well above the 2017 target of 230,367 MT.
As of Sept. 14, the agency has only bought 14,158.3 MT but procurement is expected to pick up significantly as the fourth-quarter harvest accounts for about 70% of procurement activity.
For now, private-sector-led rice shipments under the minimum access volume scheme and the 250,000 MT import order approved in July and expected to arrive by the end of the month will be sufficient, he said.
The arrival of rice shipments under the 2016 minimum access volume scheme is scheduled to run until Feb. 28. —