RP rice supply stable – Arroyo

There is more than enough rice to get the country through the next two months.

This was the assurance given by Department of Agriculture (DA) officials led by Secretary Luis Lorenzo Jr. to President Arroyo, who inspected the Food Terminal Inc. (FTI) in Taguig yesterday.

Although Lorenzo admitted that the previous 90-day supply of rice was reduced to 83 days due to "over-stocking" by household consumers, Mrs. Arroyo this time did not blow her top.

"The important thing is there is enough rice for more than two months and that is not including new harvest and new incoming (rice) importations," the President said.

The President lost her temper when she visited the National Food Authority regional warehouse in Nueva Ecija last year after former NFA administrator Anthony Abad could not explain the warehousing and distribution system to ensure that lower priced NFA rice will reach consumers.

The President’s inspection of the FTI yesterday was part of the close watch she is keeping on the various contingency measures laid out by various government agencies for the Middle East Crisis, such as the NFA’s maintaining sufficient buffer stocks of rice.

The inspection of the rice stocks at the NFA warehouse in FTI came after militant farmers’ groups accused the Arroyo administration of making false claims about the country’s rice supply.

To counter these accusations, the President announced that the country has a sufficient and available supply of rice and other foodstuffs that are among the items to be highlighted in the "nautical highway" she is launching on Monday.

Mrs. Arroyo will launch the "roll-on, roll off" (RORO) motorcade and ferry ship caravan from Manila to Batangas, Panay, Iloilo, Boracay, Antique and Dapitan City, Zamboanga del Norte.

"When we go (on the) RORO trip, to make it attractive, it’s going to be a tourist trip from here to Boracay," the President said. "We put that and the rest together because we want that even if rice is produced in Zamboanga del Sur, it can go all the way from there to here and Iloilo, being a major rice producer, it can sell (rice) here... because of the (RORO)."

"Right now we have the roll-on, roll off system from there to this way here, but there (are) no major rice producers there, so it does not help reduce the cost of rice," she said.

The nautical highway, she said "covers these rice producer areas" and "will make food even more available to the consumers, regardless of where (the food) is produced."

The President was accompanied on her inspection of the NFA warehouse in FTI by Lorenzo, NFA chief Arthur Yap and Presidential Adviser on Agricultural Modernization Angelito Sarmiento.

Briefing the President and Palace reporters at the NFA warehouse in FTI, Lorenzo said actual data and current statistics show there are 4.6 million bags of rice as of March 25, compared with the National Capital Region’s (NCR) daily consumption of 75,520 bags of rice.

"But the 92 to 93 days (worth of rice stocks), it went back to 83 days because there are some households that bought rice to cover for their own stocks at home and (rice from the) new harvest has not come in," Lorenzo said.

"We’re more than comfortable with 83 days because, last year, there were just 73 days’ buffer stocks," Lorenzo said. "As President Arroyo said, we must have at least 90 days’ buffer, so we will add to this buffer for the next six months."

Lorenzo advised the public that there is no cause for "panic buying" of rice, since there is no supply shortage, especially in Metro Manila. "We have enough rice throughout the country."

Lorenzo said NFA rice would be more than sufficiently available in parts of the country identified by the President as "hot spots or critical high-density areas," where rolling stores called "Tindahan ni Gloria sa Barangay" would be deployed.