Kiko to LGUs: Buy, distribute stored NFA rice to help farmers

Following the National Food Authority’s (NFA) revelation during a Senate hearing that it has 4 million bags of rice equivalent to 290,000 metric tons inside its warehouses, Sen. Francis Pangilinan on Friday urged local government units (LGUs) and the social welfare department to buy the stored rice, distribute it to poor families, or sell it at lower prices.

“(O)ur rice farmers are suffering due to low prices of their harvest, consumers are suffering due to high prices of their food. Our government should be in emergency mode,” he said.

Unloading the current NFA stocks will allow the government to “replenish our buffer stock with fresh stock” from local farmers, Pangilinan said.

NFA administrator Judy Dansal earlier told a Senate hearing on food and agriculture that the government had imported 1.2 million metric tons of rice this year, with 290,000 metric tons still stored inside its warehouses.