NFA needs additional 600,000 MT of rice

MANILA, Philippines -  Despite the expected arrival of approved imports, the  National Food Authority (NFA) is still short of almost 600,000 metric tons (MT) of rice for it to meet its rice buffer stock requirement for the lean moths.

NFA Special Assistant to the Administrator Rachel Miguel said the NFA is already studying the possibility of another importation of 544,000 MT of rice once the imports arrive by end-July until early September.

“The NFA management’s position is for an additional import on top of the 250,000 MT. But of course, we still have to consult that to the NFA Council,” Miguel told reporters yesterday.

“We will discuss it with the executive committee. No date yet as to when but the management will talk about it since there is really a shortage,” she added.

Current NFA inventory can only last for six days, its lowest in three years.

The NFA is mandated to maintain a food security reserve good for at least 15 days at any given time.

By July 1, which marks the onset of the lean season for rice, the NFA must have at least a 30-day buffer stock to meet the requirements of victims of calamities and emergencies.

“The six days is already not enough and will be not enough for the 30-day requirement that’s why we want to have additional buffer stocking,” Miguel said.

Based on computations, the arrival of the 250,000 MT can only cover another seven days and there will still be a 17-day gap for the 30-day mandate.

“The NFA buffer stocking is for emergency purposes and also for price regulation. Once prices increase in a certain area, we have to inject NFA rice to stabilize the price in that place,” Miguel said.

“Right now, we cannot comply with the requirement. But when it comes to the national inventory, we have sufficient rice,” she added.

The lean period, which starts July and ends September, is a period of low or zero harvest, thus buffer stock requirement is doubled to ensure that the government will have enough supply should the country face calamities and other emergencies.

NFA expects to publish the terms of reference (TOR) and resolution next week to proceed with the planned importation via government to private sector (G2P) scheme.