Rice stocks still growing

MANILA, Philippines — The country’s rice inventory has maintained its upward trend, rising by 14 percent in September, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported.

Latest data from the PSA showed that total rice inventory stood at 1.84 million metric tons (MT) as of September, 13.7 percent higher than the 1.16 million MT recorded last year.

However, this is lower by 14 percent from the previous month’s 2.13 million MT.

The PSA did not specify the number of days that the stock inventory of Filipinos’ main staple will be sufficient.

But, based on the average daily consumption of Filipinos of 32,000 MT, the current inventory is enough for 58 days.

Commercial warehouses had almost half of total inventories at 41.2 percent while households held about 36.5 percent. Supplies from the National Food Authority depositories cornered 22.2 percent of the total.

On a monthly basis, rice stocks inventory in the households, commercial warehouses and NFA depositories were down by 15 percent, 14 percent and 11 percent, respectively.

Meanwhile, the National Food Authority is gearing up for the procurement of more palay as the main harvest season begins with the aim of exceeding its target of                                                                                                                                               14.6 million bags for the year.

NFA administrator Judy Dansal said the grains agency already started to procure high volume of palay last month as wet season harvest started early in some areas.

For September alone, NFA procured 621,430 bags of palay, mostly in Western Visayas and some areas in Luzon, increasing total procurement to 6.6 million bags.

“We have already reached 46 percent of our target for the year, but we are hopeful we can achieve 100 percent or more as the main crop traditionally yields about 70 percent of the total annual production,” Dansal said.

“Aside from the increased buying price, we want to have more than sufficient space for the stocks we will be procuring. We are clearing our warehouses by selling our rice stocks and we are also trying to acquire additional temporary warehouse spaces through lease,” she said.