As of yesterday, the level of the rice procurement of the National Food Authority in Negros Occidental was 85 percent higher than its target of 39,000 bags this year, Cynthia Luz Chua, NFA senior grains operation officer, said yesterday.

A total of 45,784 bags of clean and dry palay were bought by NFA coming from individual farmers and farmers’ organization/cooperatives, Chua said.

She said the NFA buying price for clean and dry palay is P17.40 per kilo for individual farmers, and P17.70 a kilo for farmers’ cooperatives.

Meanwhile,  4,047 bags of yellow corn were purchased both from the individual farmers and farmers’ organization/cooperatives, a NFA monitoring report showed.

The yellow corn grain is bought at P12.70 for individual farmers and P13 for farmers groups, while the white corn is purchased at P13.40 for individual farmers and P13.70 for farmers groups, Chua said.

The report also showed that NFA Negros Occidental now has a total rice equivalent of 274,224 bags. Chua said this reserve is intended for rice distribution for the different NFA market outlets like the Bigasan ng Bayan and Tindahan Natin.

However, Chua said, in the past two weeks there has been a decrease in the purchasing of palay because the trader’s buying price has already increased.

Even if NFA had already achieved its target, it still continues to buy palay and corn grain from individual farmers and farmers’ groups because NFA is a ready market for the farmers, she added.

She also said that individual farmers and farmers’ groups can sell their palay and corn grain to any NFA buying station.

The buying stations are the Sanson Warehouse-Mandalagan, Shuttlers Warehouse-Tangub, Gequillana Warehouse-Dancalan, Ilog, and NAPRO Warehouse-San Carlos City, she said.

There is no rice shortage in the province, especially that it is the harvesting period, Chua also said.*LTG

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