The National Food Authority is fully ready in terms of logistics, funds and personnel to buy as much local palay harvest as possible to beef up its dwindling buffer stock during the summer crop harvest from March to May.
NFA administrator Jason Aquino said the food agency will focus all its logistics, funds and personnel on aggressive palay buying as harvest starts to peak in some areas.
As early as January, palay procurement funds had already been remitted to areas expected to start harvesting earlier than the others. These include Iloilo, Aklan, Bukidnon, La Union, Bulacan, Pampanga, Bataan, Batangas, San Jose and Mamburao in Mindoro Occidental, Sultan Kudarat and other areas in Mindanao.
The agency plans to deploy mobile procurement teams in far-flung areas to directly buy palay from farmers. They are instructed to buy even freshly harvested or wet palay based on the respective drying capacities of each NFA provincial and regional office.
Almost all NFA provincial offices and half of its buying stations across the country have mechanical driers and solar drying facilities.
All NFA buying stations will also be opened and utilized during the whole harvest period. Procurement personnel shall be required to render overtime work if necessary, Aquino said.
“Historically when harvest peaks, ex-farm prices go down, though minimal during the summer crop because this is the season when farmers produce better quality palay than during the wet crop so traders also buy aggressively. Farm-gate prices may also go down as rice from the private sector’s minimum access volume imports start to be released in the market. When that happens, NFA shall seize the opportunity to aggressively buy our local harvest,” Aquino explained.
Aquino said the NFA has made it easier for famers to sell their palay to the agency by simplifying its procedures and payment scheme. In less risky areas, NFA will pay palay deliveries in cash on the same day.
NFA buys palay at P17.00/kg clean and dry with an additional P0.20/kg drying incentive and P0.20–P0.50/kg delivery incentive. For farmer organizations, an additional P0.30/kg is given as cooperative development incentive fee.
During year-round Ugnayan meetings with farmers and local government officials, NFA reminds them that in selling palay to the agency, an individual farmer only needs to secure a passbook to prove that he is a legitimate farmer. The passbook is given free of charge. A farmer needs to submit an information sheet with identification picture, and certification from the Barangay Captain, Municipal Agriculturist, Municipal Agrarian Officer or National Irrigation Administration where his farm is located. For farmer organizations, a master passbook must be secured by submitting their certificate of registration, assembly resolution and masterlist of members.
But even without a passbook, a farmer can still sell his produce to NFA up to 200 bags for the first time. Farmers may also deliver more than their marketable surplus provided there is a certification on the volume of their harvest from the municipal agriculture officer (MAO).
For 2018, NFA targets to buy 6 million bags of palay to boost the government’s buffer stock and rice distribution requirements.