NFA allots P350-M for palay procurement in ARMM

The National Food Authority has set aside P350 million for intensive palay buying in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) during the main harvest starting this month until December.

The NFA-ARMM is targeting to buy 38,900 metric tons (MT) of palay or 778,000 bags in the last quarter. This is the biggest targeted palay procurement volume in the area in the past several years.

NFA Administrator Arthur C. Yap said NFA Council chairman Angelito Sarmiento has made representations to facilitate the early remittance of the procurement fund from the agency’s central office to all its field offices.

The NFA has earmarked a total of P3.7 billion to finance intensive palay buying for this year’s main harvest nationwide.

"We want to buy palay from our farmers more aggressively from this year’s harvest so that they can benefit from the better price that we offer as well as the incentives on top of the support price," Yap said.

The NFA forged recently an agreement with the Philippine National Bank increasing the agency’s credit ceiling with the bank to P3 billion to finance grains buying and support NFA’s other pro-poor programs.

With sufficient budget at its disposal, Yap expressed optimism on NFA’s capability to meet its procurement target of 277,190 metric tons or 5.5 million bags of palay for this year’s main cropping.

Yap noted that the NFA’s bu-ying price is used as a benchmark by grains traders in their palay buying operations. The NFA sup-port price serves as a trigger price mechanism pushing up palay prices at the farm gate, Yap said.