NFA rice demand increases
The demand for governmentsubsidized rice has risen amid the increasing commercial rice prices, according to the National Food Authority.
In a phone interview with The FREEMAN yesterday, Olma Marie Bayno, information officer at NFA in Central Visayas, said the agency has since distributed roughly 114,000 bags of NFA rice in the region’s local markets since July.
While roughly 46,000 bags of rice had been distributed in Cebu, she added.
This month, Central Visayas is expected to receive additional rice imports under the open tender bidding the government had in May with five suppliers from Thailand and Singapore which were awarded the contract to supply a total of another 250,000 metric tons (MT) of 25 percent broken, wellmilled long grain white rice for NFA.
Under this importation, Central Visayas was allocated a total of 480,000 bags of rice and 120,000 had sinced been delivered in the region.
The remaining 360,000 bags are expected to arrive within this month, Bayno said.
As of August 29, NFA's rice inventory in Region 7 stood at 488,196 bags of rice stored in its warehouses in the region.
"We observe the demand for NFA increased because of rising commercial rice prices," she said in local dialect.
Aside from the agency's accredited retailers, it had also deployed rolling stores to certain areas to sell NFA rice.
In Cebu, NFA has around 170 accredited retailers, she said.
NFA rice sold in accredited stores in public markets are sold at P27 and P32 per kilo and only at a maximum of five kilos per purchase.
Earlier, Gerry Avila, agribusiness and marketing chief at the Department of Agriculture in Central Visayas, said that commercial rce prices in Cebu have seen rising by as much as P3 per kilo.
Avila pointed out supply issues are pushing up prices.
For instance, Ganador rice, among the well-known variants, has gone up to P56 per kilo from P53.
"So far based on our monitoring all kinds of rice have increased prices," he had noted.