Farmers enjoying good palay prices

Rice farmers are reaping the fruit of their labor as palay fetches higher prices this main cropping season.

National Food Authority Administrator Arthur C. Yap said last month, the start of this year’s main harvest, ex-farm price of palay has been observed to be higher at P9.38 per kilogram or P1.59 per kilogram higher than last year’s P7.79.

This month, as harvest continues to peak, palay ex-farm price has averaged P9.07 per kilogram or P1.31 higher that P7.76 recorded in November last year. Current prices are more than 10 percent higher than those of last year's.

"With the high ex-farm price of palay nationwide, farmers are benefiting from their production investments. The buying price of NFA has helped push up the ex-farm price of palay this season," Yap said.

In November alone, the NFA bought a total of 45,047 metric tons (MT) of palay from farmers. This month, it targets to buy 83,810 MT of palay.

Meanwhile, consumers have been enjoying lower prices of rice since last October.

Yap reported that average retail prices of regular-milled rice (RMR) have showed a decreasing trend from last September’s level of P18.65 per kilogram. In October, the average price was P18.03 per kilogram or three percent lower. In November, Yap said the price slid further to P17.36 or almost four percent lower.

Prices of well-milled rice have also decreased. From last September at P20.62 per kilogram, the average price went down to P19.79 in October and further down to P19.23 in November.

"At present, NFA has a total inventory of 821,900MT equivalent to 44 percent of the country’s rice reserves of 1.87 million MT. The national inventory is sufficient to last for 73 days based on the average daily rice requirement of 25,780 MT," Yap said.

The ongoing harvest is expected to beef up local reserves of the staple. "This assures the country’s rice for the coming months," he said.