NFA-8 says: Rice inventory in EV is enough

PALO, LEYTE, Philippines — Eastern Visayas has enough rice supply, National Food Authority-8 manager Vilma Zarraga said, and that the prices of commercial rice here are expected to normalize with the onset of palay harvest.

Zarraga, in a PIA-8 report, said that based on the NFA's Rice Situationer Report, the region's total rice inventory or the total rice stocks of NFA, commercial sector and household totaled 2,143,613 bags, which is expected to last for 68 days.

"The bulk of our region's inventories are in the households with a total of 1,337,431 bags. Rice stocks totaling 389,006 bags are with the commercial sector while NFA has 417,176 bags," Zarraga said, adding that "this rice inventory for the region is more than sufficient."

Eastern Visayas is expecting rice shipments of 293,000 bags from Cebu, she said.

Meanwhile, commercial rice price monitoring of NFA-8 showed that the present modal regional average retail price of well-milled rice and regular-milled rice is pegged at P40.67 and P37 per kilogram, respectively, Zarraga said.

In the month of August, rice price was recorded at an average of P39.42 per kilogram for well-milled rice and P36.08 per kilogram for regular-milled rice or an increase of P1.25 and P0.92 per kilogram, respectively.

Zarraga said the slight rice price increase during this period of the traditional lean months (from July to September) is expected since this is the period when there is no rice harvest.

The NFA continues to sell government rice at P27 per kilogram. "Our stocks are good quality iron-fortified rice that helps to combat iron-deficiency anemia," Zarraga said.

"We issue only good quality rice stocks to our 1,655 NFA accredited retailers region wide," she added, as she invited skeptics to inspect NFA stocks in the warehouses to check the rice quality. (FREEMAN)