LEGAZPI CITY - The Bicol region expects to be self-sufficient in rice this year. The National Food Authority's regional operations chief, Edwin Atienza, on Friday said their warehouses currently have a total of 255,000 sacks of rice apart from the 1.623 million sacks of palay stocks that could be milled into about 1.310 million bags of rice. These stocks, Atienza said, could last for 144 days or 4.8 months which means the region is assured of sufficient supply until May or until the next harvest season that is expected to be bountiful as production in almost all rice fields in the region including those that are rain-fed have been maximized due to a longer rainy season. This is apart from the aggressive rice productivity support programs being implemented by the Department of Agriculture (DA) that included the Rapid Seed Supply Financing Project (RSSFP) which provided farmers with subsidized certified seeds at P1,200. For now until the late part of May, Atienza said the supply of rice in Bicol's six provinces - home to over five million people - is assured based on the prevailing stocks of the NFA. Albay had a total current stock of 86,522 bags of rice distributed among its warehouses here and in the cities of Tabaco and Ligao while Camarines Sur had 50,000 bags; Camarines Norte, 30,285 bags; Catanduanes, 30,505 bags; Masbate, 17,455; and Sorsogon, 40,233 bags. Of these total rice stocks, he said 49 percent or 125,000 bags were imported from Thailand and Vietnam and the rest were acquired from local farmers under the intensified palay procurement program of the agency. Under the program, the NFA buys palay from farmers at P17 per kilo with a 30-centavo per kilo incentive to farmer’s cooperatives, 20 centavos per kilo for the dying and another 20 centavos for the delivery to the nearest buying stations bringing to P17.70 the buying price being paid per kilo. Private rice traders pay only between P8 and P10 for every kilo of palay sold to them by farmers and the NFA gives freedom to the farmers to choose where to sell their produce even as the NFA is trying to maintain a higher farm gate price of palay to give farmers enough return of investment (ROI) on their investments. During the last parts of 2011, meanwhile, Atienza said the NFA was able to limit its distribution of government rice to accredited retails across the region to only 9,000 bags per month which means the supply of commercial variety of the staple grain was sufficient in the local market. At the height of the demand for NFA rice in the region, the agency in 2010 until early last year released 15,000 bags monthly to stabilize the supply due to the shortage of commercial rice. “We sell NFA rice at government-subsidized price of P25 per kilo to retailers who sell them at P27 to consumers. This price is way below the prices of commercial varieties that range from P30 to P37 pesos depending on the quality,” he said.
That government-subsidized price of NFA rice is in line with President Benigno Aquino III’s directive that prevented rice price hike during the Yuletide season to cushion consumers from the rising cost of commodities, Atienza said.
