NFA to buy more palay from Bohol farmers
By Kit Bagaipo
Visayas Bureau
First Posted 23:27:00 08/26/2008
TAGBILARAN CITY – The National Food Authority (NFA) will increase the volume of rice it would buy from Bohol rice farmers.
“We will be buying some 100,000 bags this season so that farmers can sell their harvests at a much higher price,” said NFA Bohol assistant manager Ma. Fe Evasco.
This figure is thrice as much as its regular procurement program in the past years, Evasco said.
She said the NFA would deploy mobile procurement and stationary buying stations to make it more convenient for farmers to sell their produce.
The buying price would also depend on the purity and moisture content of the palay, Evasco said.
The NFA will buy clean and dry palay with 14 percent moisture content and a minimum of 95 percent purity at P17 per kg.
The NFA will also offer P1,800 cash incentive for every 50 bags of palay sold to the agency.
“The more they harvest, the bigger the cash assistance they get,” Evasco added.
Bohol Gov. Erico Aumentado has expressed concern over the plummeting prices of palay.
Aumentado learned that commercial traders have been buying palay at P12 per kg.
Due to lack of access to capital resources and the increasing farm production costs, farmers in the province were forced to borrow money from commercial buyers that serve as a cash advance in return for their yield in a particular cropping season.
The practice, locally known as tihap, leaves the farmers at the mercy of big rice traders who would dictate the price of palay.
Aumentado has directed the provincial agriculture office and the NFA to investigate the commercial buyers who allegedly pay only P12 per kg of palay.
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