NFA has enough rice to feed RP for 42 days

MANILA, Philippines - The National Food Authority (NFA)’s rice inventory is continuously increasing due to the arrival of imported rice and the ongoing intensive palay procurement, NFA Administrator Jessup P. Navarro reported yesterday.

As of the first week of April, the agency had in its warehouses some 30 million bags, sufficient for a 42-day supply based on the entire country’s daily rice consumption rate of 726,000 bags.

Based on the agency’s average daily sales of 58,811 bags, the NFA’s present inventory will be enough for 509 days.

Navarro said that a total of 1.29 million metric tons (MT) of imported rice has arrived with one million MT already in the agency’s warehouses.

Additional stocks of 299,653 metric tons (MT) are being unloaded in several ports across the country and another 328,851 MT are in transit to the Philippines.

On palay procurement, Navarro said the NFA has bought a total of 1.29 million bags as of the first week of April. The NFA buys an average of 21,604 bags of palay daily which will go up as summer harvest peaks this month.