Gov’t to buy less palay from farmers, says NFA

The National Food Authority (NFA) has announced it would not target of buying 500,000 metric tons of unmilled rice from local farmers this year due to budget constraints.

NFA Administrator Angelito Banayo said it was likely the agency would only be able to buy 270,000 metric tons of palay under its domestic procurement program for 2011.

“The funds we have (on hand) are good for (the purchase of) 250,000 MT of palay. Whatever we can save, we will use for the purchase of more palay,” Banayo told reporters during the Senate hearing on the proposed budget of the Department of Agriculture for 2012 last week.

Banayo said the income earned by the NFA  from the rice importation program this year and the P2.5 billion allotment it received from the DA for the palay procurement program would be used to buy the harvest of local farmers.

Despite the additional cash, Banayo admitted the NFA would not be able to attain its goal of purchasing 500,000 metric tons of rice.

Early this year, Banayo said the NFA wanted to buy as many as 870,000 metric tons of palay from Filipino farmers, which represents 5 percent of the DA’s rice output target for 2011 of 17.4 million.

The NFA, as part of its mandate to stabilize the supply and price of the staple, buys rice from local farmers to encourage them to plant more.

The agency buys rice from farmers at P17 per kilo and sells the grain to the public at between P18 and P30 per kilo depending on the type of rice. The NFA prices are well below the retail tags offered by commercial traders.