SAN JOSE DE BUENAVISTA, Antique -- The price of rice in the local market in the province is expected to go down with the projected harvest of some 800,000 bags of palay in the first cropping season by end August.
The National Food Authority (NFA) Antique provincial office on Thursday already requested from its central office an initial PHP1 million as cereal procurement fund (CPF) to be used in buying newly-harvested palay.
NFA Antique provincial manager Marianito B. Bejemino said the request was made following a report from the Office of the Provincial Agriculture (OPA) that it is expecting harvest in around 10,000 hectares of palay fields in the province by end of August or early September.
“The OPA expects an initial harvest of about 80 bags of palay per hectare,” he said.
By next month, Bejemino said many farmers in Antique will be harvesting palay for their first cropping.
“NFA’s buying price will be PHP17 per kilogram for a clean and dry palay,” he said, adding a bag may cost around PHP700 to PHP800.
The NFA manager said with the start of the harvest in Antique, the price of rice in the market is also expected to go down.
“Unlike in the previous weeks that the price of rice really went up to as much as PHP51 per kilogram for well milled rice and for the regular milled rice PHP48 per kilogram now it is going downward,” he said.
Well-milled rice from last week’s PHP51 kilogram, based on the NFA Antique data, has now gone down by a peso or is being sold for PHP50 per kilogram by retailers starting August 29.
Regular milled rice, however, still remains at PHP48 per kilo.
Meanwhile, Bejemino said that they are coordinating with the local government units and their Municipal Agriculture Officers so they could inform the NFA where harvests are so that the NFA could conduct mobile procurement, particularly in far-flung areas like in Valderrama town. (PNA)
