The National Food Authority (NFA) is optimistic about the present outcome of their palay procurement from local farmers with improved prices, which began on Monday.

“We started that yesterday, and we are getting very positive results,” NFA officer-in-charge administrator Larry Lacson said Tuesday in a radio interview.

He said that the rice agency was able to procure considerable rice on Monday and instructed the NFA warehouses in provinces to report daily the volume they have acquired.

“So far, we have received good feedback from those areas where there is more rice that they can still buy,” Lacson added.

The NFA maintains a 300,000-metric-ton level of national rice buffer stock, to be used in emergencies and to sustain disaster relief programs during calamities.

The NFA acting chief said he is confident in reaching its target rice inventory volume, citing expecting a bigger rice yield in the wet season.

“I am positive about that in the sense that the harvest of the wet season is bigger. Because this dry season is 30 percent of the total production of the year, the other 70 percent will come from the wet season,” he said.

“Just imagine the 70 percent we’ll be targeting this wet season; I am confident,” Lacson added.

Moreover, he said that the NFA is now able to procure rice along with traders, who they recently said were outbidding them with higher purchase prices.

“We're getting along. We are getting a sizable buffer stock. That's what we see,” he said.

Rice prices in market not to be affected

The NFA recently marked up its purchase price for palay after admitting their thin procurement due to private traders outbidding them with higher buying prices.

With the improved prices, the NFA now buys clean and dry palay from P23 to P30 per kilogram and fresh and wet palay from P17 to P23.

Despite this, Lacson said he does not see the change in their purchasing prices affecting the rice prices in markets.

“I don't see that effect because we are only a very small percentage of the total. I think the prices now [of rice] are more dictated by world prices, not by the NFA,” he said.

“We do not intervene in the market in the sense that we do not sell or regulate; we only store,” he added.

The Department of Agriculture's latest price monitoring showed that imported special rice is priced at P56 to P65 per kilo, and the premium is between P52 and P62 per kilo; well-milled is P50 to P55 per kilo, and regular milled is P49 to P51 per kilo.

Local commercial special rice, on the other hand, is priced between P57 and P67 per kilo, with the premium variety at P51 and P58, well milled from P48 to 55 per kilo, and regular milled at P48 to P52 per kilo.