{"id":158937,"date":"2018-04-06T06:01:19","date_gmt":"2018-04-06T10:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=158937"},"modified":"2018-04-06T06:01:59","modified_gmt":"2018-04-06T10:01:59","slug":"nfa-eyes-to-buy-1-2-m-bags-of-rice-from-local-farmers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/04\/06\/nfa-eyes-to-buy-1-2-m-bags-of-rice-from-local-farmers\/","title":{"rendered":"NFA eyes to buy 1.2-M bags of rice from local farmers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Data<\/a>
Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) released during the third week of March showed that the average farm gate price of palay has reached PHP20.40 per kilogram nationwide. (Seen in this file photo<\/a> by the National Food Authority on Facebook<\/a> are commercial rice at Bangued Farmers Trading Market in August 2016)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA —<\/strong>\u00a0Exerting all efforts to beef up the government rice stocks from local produce, the National Food Authority (NFA) has so far procured a total of 19,361 bags, with 7,412 bags bought in March, at the start of the summer crop harvest.<\/p>\n

NFA Administrator Jason Laureano Y. Aquino said NFA field offices are adopting innovative means to convince farmers to sell to the agency despite the big difference in\u00a0palay<\/em>\u00a0buying price. NFA buys at a support price of PHP17 per kilogram for clean and dry\u00a0palay<\/em>, while private traders offer much higher prices.<\/p>\n

Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) released during the third week of March showed that the average farm gate price of\u00a0palay<\/em>\u00a0has reached PHP20.40 per kilogram nationwide.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur\u00a0palay<\/em>\u00a0procurement for March was higher, with most of our purchases coming from our NFA branches in Northern Cagayan-Apayao, Mindoro, Zamboanga del Sur, North Cotabato, and Bukidnon,\u201d Aquino said.<\/p>\n

Aquino also applauded the NFA employees in their relentless effort to buy\u00a0palay<\/em>\u00a0from farmers in spite of the high buying price of commercial traders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile our procurement is still below our target, it shows the result of our best efforts to buy locally produced rice. It is proof that our hard work and consistent information campaign among farmers nationwide are paying off,\u201d Aquino said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Aquino clarifies that the mandate of NFA is to provide a floor price for\u00a0palay<\/em>\u00a0for farmers to get a reasonable return on their produce.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe intervene only if\u00a0palay<\/em>\u00a0prices are low, so that farmers can recoup their investments. If prices are high, government intervention is not necessary. We want the farmers to earn and be competitive,\u201d the administrator said.<\/p>\n

NFA hopes to buy more as the summer harvest peaks, with a procurement target of 1.2 million bags for the months of April and May. The PSA estimates an increase in this year\u2019s\u00a0palay<\/em>\u00a0production for the summer crop at 4.67 million metric tons.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur target is to buy at least 10 percent of the total harvest to boost our food security buffer stocks, and bring back the PHP27 and PHP32 per kilogram rice in the market,\u201d Aquino said.\u00a0(NFA PR)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA —\u00a0Exerting all efforts to beef up the government rice stocks from local produce, the National Food Authority (NFA) has …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":158967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[3226,3225,5500,15195],"class_list":["post-158937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-national-food-authority","tag-nfa","tag-rice","tag-rice-supply","mauthors-maricor-zapata","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}