(PNA file photo by Joan Bondoc)
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga – The National Food Authority (NFA) has received a big boost in its efforts to procure wet or freshly harvested palay from farmers in Nueva Ecija that could help increase its buffer stocks.
The provincial government of Nueva Ecija, through the Provincial Food Council, has agreed to let the NFA use for free the rice processing system (RPS) facility to dry wet palay bought from the farmers.
The state-of-the-art facility has recirculating dryers and multi-pass rice mills that reduce waste due to the harvesting process while maintaining the quality of milled rice.
“Napapasalamat kami sa provincial government ng Nueva Ecija, kay Governor Aurelio Umali, for allowing us to use the facility especially the dryers (We are thankful to the provincial government of Nueva Ecija and to Governor Aurelio Umali for allowing us to use the facility especially the dryers)," NFA-3 (Central Luzon) Regional Manager Alwin Uy said in a radio interview on Wednesday.
He said only five to 15 percent of the total palay harvests in the region could be bought by the NFA due to its insufficiency in drying facilities.
“Napakalaki ng kakulangan ng capability ng NFA na mag-dry at yan po ang isa sa nagiging problema namin para makapamili ng palay palay (The NFA has a big lack of capability to dry palay and it is one of our problems in procuring palay) and now that the provincial government of Nueva Ecija has partnered with the NFA, malaking bagay yung capacity na madadagdag sa amin so makakapamili na po tayo ng mga sariwang palay (the capacity that will added to us is a big thing so we can now buy freshly-harvested palay),” Uy said.
The NFA's base buying price has increased with the approved buffer stocking incentives (BSI) from PHP19 to PHP23 per kilo for clean and dry grains with 14 percent moisture content, and PHP16 to PHP23 for fresh/wet palay with 22 percent to 29.9 percent moisture content. (PNA)
