P17 plus P3.70/kilo

NFA STARTS NATIONAL

PALAY PROCUREMENT

By Manny Piñol

The National Food Authority Council (NFAC) today approved a national palay procurement program for local production which would pay rice farmers up to P20.70 per kilo.

The procurement program will be launched in either Mindoro Occidental or in Camarines Sur on Friday, Oct. 12.

The farmer who delivers his clean and dry palay to NFA will get P17 per kilo and an incentive of P3.70 per kilo while his association or cooperative will get a bonus of machinery and equipment like tractors, harvesters and even Solar Powered Irrigation System for huge volumes of rice delivered.

The palay procured this harvest season will be part of the buffer stocks of the NFA for 2019 as part of President Rody Duterte’s program to increase the country’s rice reserves.

During the same meeting, the NFA Council designated Deputy Administrator Tomas Escarez as Officer-in-Charge of the NFA.

Also approved in today’s NFA Council meeting were the following measures:

1. Bidding of 500,000 metric tons of imported rice to form part of the country’s rice reserves;

2. Approval of the proposal of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to start a rice distribution program in partnership with the private sector;

3. The implementation of the proper labelling of rice sold in the public markets, identifying “Local Rice” and “Imported Rice” and disallowing the use of fancy names like “Sinandomeng” and others;

4. The fielding of NFA inspection teams to monitor the pricing of rice in the market and checking of exact weight of sacks of rice sold in the market following reports of underweighing by as much as 1 kilo for every 50-kilo bag of rice..

5. The implementation of the Suggested Retail Price for both local and imported rice by the last week of October ;

6. The use of bags with markings to indicate when the rice was harvested, what farmers’ group produced it, the name of the miller and the certification by the DA, NFA and DTI that the rice passed Quality and Food Safety Standards.

The members of the NFA Council are expected to attend the launching of the National Procurement Program of the NFA on Friday.

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