NFA to buy 6M sacks of palay from farmers

The National Food Authority (NFA) is targeting to buy 6 million sacks of palay this year to boost its buffer stock and rice distribution despite its failure to secure an increase in its buying price. NFA Administrator Jason Aquino said the NFA was preparing for “aggressive palay buying” during the summer harvest from March to May. Aquino said they would focus all of the agency’s logistics, funds and personnel to buy even freshly harvested or wet palay based on the drying capacities of each NFA provincial and regional office. Before the shortage of rice, NFA only procured clean and dry palay from farmers. He added that the NFA planned to deploy mobile procurement teams to far-flung
areas to directly buy palay from farmers. —Karl R. Ocampo