Advocacy groups have raised the alarm over a recent National Food Authority’s statement that the country’s rice buffer stock is only good for seven days, especially as the country enters the typhoon season.
The NFA said it based the seven-day supply on a daily consumption of at least 33,000 metric tons. Under the Rice Tariffication Law, NFA’s role has been reduced to maintaining bufferstocks that is supposed to be bought from local farmers.
“This is alarming as the next big harvest is still in October. It pays to be prepared especially with this pandemic still hovering in the picture,” Omi Royandoyan of the Nagkakaisang Grupo Laban sa RTL said during a public online forum.
During the height of enhanced community quarantine in the past months, NFA Administrator Judy Dansal said that the agency did not see a need for a buffer stock larger than one million bags as was the practice in the last 20-30 years. But she said that the NFA’s biggest rice released happened during the pandemic.
“Since we are not out of the woods yet in this COVID-19 plus the threat of disasters is highest during this semester, our past experiences should have already given us enough lessons more or less on the definition of what a ‘sufficient buffer-stocks’ should be during rainy days,” Royandoyan added.
Meanwhile, Raul Montemayor of the Federation of Free Farmers, said that “the pandemic reveals the weaknesses of the RTL when it downgraded NFA’s role but continued to rely heavily on the agency for the country’s food security during this protracted health disaster situation. We urge the government to review the law, particularly NFA’s role and installing some form of regulation over private traders considering our present situation. We also call on the government to provide additional palay procurement budget to NFA.”
While rice imports continue to come in, private traders cannot be expected to provide lower-priced rice to local governments and other agencies that are distributing rice supplies to vulnerable people during this extended lockdown period and when climate-related disasters hit the country, Montemayor said.