BINALONAN, Pangasinan -- The National Food Authority (NFA) office in eastern Pangasinan has eased the buying of rice grains (palay) from local farmers and is set to conduct mobile procurement.
In an interview on Thursday, NFA eastern Pangasinan manager Veralew de Vera said the agency has decided to further reduce requirements for farmers to take advantage of the extra peso they offer.
“As of now, we would no longer require passbooks. We would only require a certification from their barangays which proves that they are legitimate farmers,” he said.
“A team coming from the NFA goes to towns under our jurisdiction, where they buy the farmers’ palay without them (farmers) having to rent trucks to deliver their goods to us,” de Vera added.
Farmers, he said, prefer selling their palay to private traders at around PHP12 to PHP18 per kilogram as payment is immediately given and few requirements are needed to be fulfilled –against the NFA which procures PHP19 per kilogram.
As of this writing, the NFA eastern Pangasinan currently houses around 300,000 sacks of rice in its warehouses.
Despite the large volume of rice stored, de Vera said the NFA is urging farmers to sell their palay to them.
The provincial government of Pangasinan is also set to buy palay from farmers as soon as it finishes preparing the requirements. (PNA)
