PANGASINAN has enough rice buffer stocks for the next 30-60 days according to an official of the National Food Authority (NFA)-Pangasinan.

Frederick Dulay, NFA assistant manager, said , “We have enough buffer stocks,” but declined to reveal the volume available at the warehouse.

“Sapat na sapat,” he said, adding that Pangasinan is a production area.

He said the peak of harvest of rice farmers is on the first week of October up to the second week of November and extends up to February for the wet cropping season.

He said based on their monitoring of data from the Department of Agriculture, despite Typhoon Egay in August, there was no significant damage on palay in Pangasinan.

Pangasinan has a total harvest of 28,442,244 bags of palay for the whole year.

This September to October, NFA is expecting a harvest of 16-million bags of palay, Dulay said.

NFA buys palay year-round. Per kilogram is bought at P19 for clean and dry palay ready for milling, Dulay said.

He laments however, that NFA still cannot match private traders’ offer to pay P23 per kilo

This is the reason why they are coordinating for the Palay Marketing Assistance for additional cash subsidy from legislators and local government units so they can buy palay at higher price for their buffer stocks.

NFA Pangasinan has three warehouses in Rosales town but only two are currently being used, three in Binalonan, two in Mangatarem and one each in Alaminos City and Lingayen, Dulay said.

All these are NFA-owned except the one in Lingayen which is privately-owned and is being leased by this government agency. (Eva Visperas)

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