PNoy admin wants NFA reorganized, re-formed

PNoy to Agri. Dept.: Check again how much rice to import in 2011 President Benigno Simeon Aquino III on Monday instructed Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala to revalidate the volume of the rice the country will import for this year. At a press briefing in Malacañang, the President said Alcala had told him that the country might import some 300,000 metric tons of rice. “I asked him how much do we have to import [and] he gave me the number of 300,000 but I then asked him to revalidate. Normally, we have unexpected shortage of about 1.3 million metric tons of rice. This is the amount needed to be consumed versus our production," Aquino said. The President said the Agriculture secretary told him that harvests so far have been “very, very good." But Aquino cautioned Alcala that any sudden change in the weather could affect crops yet to be harvested. Asked by the President if the government’s rice buffer supply was sufficient, the Agriculture secretary told Aquino that inventories so far have the two-month buffer volume mandated by law while, in certain instances because of over-importation, some warehouses or areas even have 80 percent supply on hand. In another development, the reorganization of National Food Authority is one of the priority bills Malacanang submitted to the Congress. Presidential sokesperson Edwin Lacierda said the Aquino administration wants to reorganize the NFA to arrest the agency’s ballooning debt, improve the delivery of services, and fast-track the administration’s goal of lowering rice importation to make the country rice sufficient in two years. In a press briefing, Lacierda said NFA needed to be re-formed into a National Food Corp. (NFC), primarily mandated to maintain and manage a national strategic and government rice buffer stock by July of each year. The NFC, he added, will not take over NFA’s debts and obligations pegged at P161 billion (down from P177 billion) and instead would start on “a clean slate basis." “All assets and liabilities of NFA not transferred shall be retained and administered, disposed of and liquidated by the NFA," Lacierda said. He said that as well as creating the NFC, the bill submitted to the Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) also proposes increasing the penalties imposed on rice smuggling “which shall be considered as economic sabotage and deem the offense as non-bailable." Aside from the NFC, a Food Development and Regulatory Administration (FDRA) would also be created to “carry out regulatory, scientific and developmental functions for strengthening the efficiency of the food supply chain in order to increase the value of the farmers’ produce as a component of food products for export."– MRT/PE/VS, GMA News