Government doubles daily palay purchases

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines will aggressively buy palay from local farmers as the summer harvest peaks, the National Food Authority (NFA) said. The NFA, which ensures the country’s food security, will be buying more than twice the amount of unmilled rice, Jessup P. Navarro, the agency’s administrator said. Palay procurement has reached at a daily rate of 8,496 bags during the third week of March from just 3,438 bags bought on the third week of February, the agency said. The NFA is also mulling to buy 1.13 million bags of palay in March, 1.46 million bags this month, 1.18 million bags in May, and additional 301,500 bags in June. “We are expecting that the average volume of palay bought daily will even increase in the coming days as the summer harvest peaks," he said. The NFA said it has adjusted its target procurement volume for the summer crop to 3.78 million bags. “NFA has not ceased its palay buying activities allowing the agency to further increase its inventory," he said. The month of January posted a record high volume of palay bought daily when some regions experienced an extended main harvest, he said. Besides providing price support of P17 per kilogram, the NFA raised the additional incentives for cooperative development to P 0.30 per kilogram (kg) while the drying and transport incentives are now at P0.20 per kg each. "We are confident that at P17.70 per kg effective buying price of NFA for clean and dry palay, the farmers will have better income and entice them to sell their produce to the agency," Navarro said. Among the regions with high palay procurement target this year are Central Luzon with 3.5 million bags, Southern Tagalog with 3.2 million, Cagayan Valley with 2.1 million, Central Mindanao and the Ilocos Region with 1.9 and 1.8 million bags, each respectively. NFA is looking at initially buying 14 to 18 million bags of this year with the Agriculture department expecting palay production to reach 17 million metric tons (MMT) this year from 16.81 MMT in 2008. - GMANews.TV