By Manny Piñol
Farmers who will sell their paddy rice to the National Food Authority (NFA) will not only enjoy a higher buying price of P20.70 per kilo but will also get incentives like seeds, loans, farm equipment and free trucking from the farm to the buying station.
The P20.70 buying price includes P17 per kilo for clean and dry palay plus an incentive of P3.70 per kilo which was approved by the NFA Council.
The NFA has P7-B for its local paddy rice procurement which could be rolled over to the next harvest season.
In the Rice Tariffication Act expected to be signed by President Rody Duterte soon, the NFA will no longer buy imported rice.
Instead, it will buy locally produced rice for buffer stocking.
In the first coordinative meeting between the Department of Agriculture, its attached agencies and Regional Offices with the NFA in Davao City today problems encountered by farmers in dealing with the agency were addressed.
The meeting was also attended by officials of PhilRice, PhilMech and Regional Directors and Provincial Managers of NFA from Mindanao.
The problems confronting farmers in dealing with NFA, however, include the lack of drying facilities, the delayed payments and the inability of the agency to bring their buying operations to the field.
Added to that is the dependence of many farmers on community traders for their financing for the purchase of fertilizers, farm inputs and even personal needs.
To address these problems, the following interventions were agreed upon:
1. Opening of a credit program for farmers who will sell their produce to the NFA at 6% interest per year through the Agricultural Credit Policy Council;
2. Establishment by DA of drying facilities in NFA buying stations which farmers could use for free or which NFA could use in drying freshly harvested paddy rice from farmers;
3. Tie-up between the DA and NFA for the use of the Rice Processing Facilities established by the DA in about 200 areas all over the country;
4. Aggressive procurement operations by the NFA by deploying mobile procurement trucks to pick up farmers’ produce at the farm level with the DA lending hauling trucks to the NFA;
5. Incentives to farmers association or cooperatives of free machinery like tractors, transplanters or harvesters if they meet a set volume of rice delivered and sold to the NFA;
6. For PhilRice to coordinate with the DA by identifying the rice seed varieties adaptable to a specific area, focusing on at least three high-yielding rice varieties.
7. For DA, PhilRice and NFA to launch an incentive program which would give to farmers 1 bag of Inbred Rice Seeds for every 4-metric tons of palay sold to NFA.
On Monday, DA Region XII Director Milagros Casis will turn over to NFA XII Director Diane Silva 7 hauling trucks to be used in bringing farmers’ produce to the NFA buying stations.
The DA will also allow NFA XII to use 19 Rice Processing Centers both as extended buying stations and in milling procured paddy rice.
Region XII is the first rice producing area where harvest has started.
NFA Region XII reported that it has already bought over 80,000 bags in just 15 days.
Next week, another coordinative meeting between the DA and NFA will be held in Manila for the Luzon Regions.
(Photos by Diane Faith Garcia.)
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