NFA continues buying palay

MANILA, Philippines — The National Food Authority (NFA) continues its palay procurement program as it buys off-season palay harvest in some areas in the country.

While January is not a traditional palay harvest month, NFA said it continues to procure in areas in Mindanao and other parts of the country that are currently harvesting their crop.

Latest data showed that NFA had already procured a total of 88,982 bags of palay or about 44 percent of its 200,500 bags target for the month.

In the provinces of North and South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat, the local NFA office had already breached its procurement targets for the month.

NFA was also able to buy in Agusan del Sur, Surigao del Sur, Bukidnon, and Southern Tagalog provinces.

“More farmers are now selling their harvest to NFA. We attribute this to two things, the approval by the NFA Council of an additional buffer stocking incentive and the readiness of NFA personnel and logistics to accept palay deliveries any day,” NFA officer-in-charge administrator Tomas Escarez said.

Noting that palay harvests are no longer confined to the traditional summer crops from March to May and main harvest from October to December, Escarez had instructed all NFA field offices to keep all buying stations open daily to provide farmers a ready market for their produce.

Palay procurement shall be done on a year-round basis, with all personnel, logistics and procurement funds made available anywhere in the country where NFA operates, at any given time.

Following the directive of President Duterte for NFA to source its buffer stocks from the domestic harvest, the NFA has embarked on aggressive procurement operations as farmers take advantage of the bigger incentives offered by the government.

This year, NFA targets to buy at least 7.78 million bags of palay from local farmers.