Farmgate price continues to drop – PSA

THE farmgate price of (unhusked rice) - selling their produce to the government.

These developed as farmers started harvesting their crops last month, while the National Food Authority (NFA) launched an incentive program in areas where prices of palay are comparatively low.

In its latest price monitoring report, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said average farmgate price of palay further declined to P21.86 per kilogram, down 2.24 percent from its week-ago level of P22..41/kg.

However, compared to the same period last year, the average farmgate price rose by 16.54 percent.

Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol earlier said that buying prices of palay could fall by at least 21 percent to P18/kg when harvest season peaks and as additional rice imports of the NFA arrive.

At the same time, Piñol said the NFA’s launching of its P3/kg Buffer Stocking Incentive (BSI) in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro and in other areas where prices of palay are low compared to other provinces encouraged more farmers to sell their produce to the NFA.

Piñol said raising the NFA’s buying price of palay from P17/kg to P20.70/ kg enabled the agency to procure more from local farmers as the new price was already competitive against those of private traders.

NFA OIC administrator Tomas R. Escarez said the extra P3/kg BSI was over and above the agency’s buying price. It brought the agency’s buying price for clean and dry palay to P20.40/kg for individual farmers and P20.70/kg for farmer cooperatives.

Over the past 10 years, the NFA’s buying price for palay has remained unchanged at P17/kg. The NFA buys clean and dry palay at P17/kg with additional incentives of P0.20 to P0.50/ kg for delivery; P0.20/kg drying incentive and P0.30/kg for cooperatives or farmers’ organizations.

For this year, the NFA is aiming to purchase six million bags of palay or 300,000 metric tons (MT). In 2017, the grains agency failed to achieve its goal of procuring three million bags, as its purchases reached only 556,880 bags, which is equivalent to 28,344 MT.

Meanwhile, from the present range of P21 to P23 per kilo, Piñol said he expected the average price of paddy rice to settle between P18 and P20 per kilo in the remaining months of the year.

Both wholesale and retail prices of well milled rice also dropped during the week. In wholesale trade, the average price of well-milled rice at P45.45/ kg fell by 1.24 percent from previous week’s level.

However, it picked up by 15.83 percent from its year-ago level of P39.24/kg.

Similarly, the average retail price of well-milled rice at P49.00/kg dropped by 0.73 percent from its week-ago level of P49.30/kg. Compared to the previous year’s P42.30/kg however, it was higher by 16.09 percent.

Prices at the wholesale and retail levels of regular milled rice also continued to fall.

Compared to previous week, the average wholesale price of regular milled rice went down by 1.20 percent to P42.64/kg. But compared to its yearago level, it went up by 19.84 percent.

In retail trade, the average price of regular milled rice dropped by 0.50 percent to P45.87/kg from its week-

from its year-ago level.