By Manny Piñol
Secretary of Agriculture
Davao City – Farmers who sell their rice produce to the National Food Authority (NFA) will no longer be required to present passbooks and will be paid in cash on the spot.
The NFA buying stations will also buy from “walk-in” farmers who would like to sell 5 to 10 bags of rice while “fresh” palay will be bought subject to adjustments on the P17 per kilo buying price based on the moisture content.
The farmer, however, will be given the additional P3.70 Buffer Stocking Incentive (BSI) for every kilo of palay delivered to the NFA regardless of the moisture content.
The NFA will also be opening over 200 new buying stations all over the country by using the Rice Processing Centers established by the DA.
For every 4,000 kilos of rice that a farmer delivers to the NFA, he will be given one bag of PhilRice inbred seeds proven to be adaptable in his area as his incentive.
Free hauling of their produce will also be offered by the NFA using trucks provided by the Department of Agriculture.
Drying facilities from the DA will be established in the different buying stations of the NFA which the farmers could use for free.
Officials of the NFA were also ordered to warn their employees who man the buying stations to buy only from legitimate farmers and not to deal with traders or pseudo cooperatives controlled by traders.
With the NFA buying farmers’ produce at a higher price than most private buyers, unscrupulous traders in connivance with some NFA workers are expected to take advantage by buying from the farmers in the remote areas at a very low price and reselling this to the government.
This is a practice which was rampant in the past.
The NFA officials, however, were warned that those who will be involved in this racket will face administrative and criminal charges.
These guidelines on reforms in the NFA and its procurement system were among those agreed upon during the first DA, NFA, PhilRice and PhilMech Coordinative Meeting held Friday at the Apo View Hotel in Davao City.
It was the first coordinative meeting since the NFA was returned by President Rody Duterte to the DA four months ago.
The meeting was held to prepare for the new role of the NFA under the Tariffication Act which is mainly buffer stocking and buying from local farmers, instead of importing rice.
Tomorrow, the first seven hauling trucks and mechanical dryers will be turned over by DA Region XII to the NFA in the Baguer, Libungan buying station.
(Photos attached were taken during the launching of the BSI program of the NFA in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro in October 2018.)
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