PUERTO PRINCESA CITY, Palawan -- The National Food Authority (NFA) in Palawan has reduced its 5,000 bags of unhusked rice yearend procurement target to 1,000 due to price-buying competition with private traders and inadequate drying facilities.
Ma. Lewina Tolentino, provincial food authority manager, said Thursday that despite the PHP3 buffer stocking incentive (BSI) they have added to their PHP17.00 buying price, it is still difficult to compete with the PHP22.00 to PHP23.00 that private rice traders are offering to farmers.
“Nakakalungkot kasi kahit anong gawin namin, nagbabarangay-barangay na kami, actually nag house-to-house pa nga sa mga populated areas ng farmers [pero wala talaga] (It is disheartening because we’ve already gone village-to-village and house-to-house in areas populated by farmers, but nothing happens),” Tolentino said.
Tolentino said their procurement volume is also dependent on the number of drying facilities they have.
Currently, the NFA in Palawan only has four drying machines in Narra and Brooke's Point, not enough to handle local rice volumes for milling.
“Actually, it is really difficult for us to be able to purchase many sacks of palay kasi nga tumaas ang presyo nang pamimili ng traders tapos 'yong isa pa, ayaw na nila magbilad. They would rather sell them straight from the thresher or the harvester (… because the traders increased their buying price, and another thing is they don’t want to open dry them anymore),” she added.
The 1,000 bags of unhusked rice, she explained, can make 630 (or 63 percent milling recovery) bags of rice which are enough if will be added to the 20,000-30,000 bags they are expecting to receive from imports this month.
Tolentino said that on November 23, the Department of Agriculture (DA) had a consultation meeting with the farmers, seed growers, and the NFA to address different concerns.
It is where the problems of the NFA's low buying price and the insufficient number of mechanical dryers surfaced as the factors that hinder the purchase of adequate volumes of palay for Palawan.
They had since written to the DA to request for funds for the additional mechanical dryers but so far, Tolentino said they have not received any update.
Tolentino said the farmers can help the NFA stabilize its procurement goal by selling to them instead of the private rice traders.
“Hopefully, we are targeting 1,000 and we are calling on our farmers to support the NFA because whatever palay we buy in Palawan will be the same palay converted to rice that will be sold to our residents,” she said. (With reports from Rachel Ganancial/PNA)
