Group to make public aware of cheap rice

CEBU, Philippines - To raise public awareness on the availability of cheap government rice, the Grain Retailers Confederation of the Philippines-Cebu will hold a caravan from September 22 to 26.

"There will be a caravan of NFA (National Food Authority) rolling stores in the whole province. This is aside from other activities like feeding programs in depressed areas in store for the public," said Semy Cabuenas, chairman of Grecon-Cebu, a group of rice retailers in Cebu.

Cabuenas said the event is in line with the "Grains Industry Week" Grecon-Cebu will be celebrating.

Cabuenas said the caravan will inform the public on the NFA rice, which is sold at P27 and P32 per kilo, depending on the quality. He said this is part of their continuing efforts to belie reports that the NFA rice is not accessible.

"We've been bringing NFA rice through the NFA rolling stores in different barangays so the people can avail of this cheap rice. We have this kind of rice, only the public is not fully aware of it," he said.

According to Cabuenas, the past months since his group has brought the NFA rolling stores to Talisay City's barangays, for example, several hundreds of sacks of NFA rice have already been disposed.

He added that each time they come, indigents line up to buy the cheap rice, which is almost similar in quality to the P41/kilo commercial rice.

Cabuenas said that with the growing demand for NFA rice in the barangays, they hope to increase their supply in the coming days to better serve the public. — (FREEMAN)