With aggressive efforts to boost crop production as a measure to address previous crisis of rice in the market, Department of Agriculture Central Visayas reported price drops for cereal crops these previous weeks.
In the weekly cereals and fertilizer price monitoring report for Cebu province furnished by the DA which covered two weeks from July 9 to 15 and July 16 to 22, it showed steady farm prices and decreased retail prices for rice, corn and fertilizers.
In both weeks there were no trading for fresh and dry palay and yellow corn grain in the farm level.
Whereas prices remain steady for white corngrain in both weeks with low trading price at P19.85 and highest at P21.08 and at P21.38 prevailing price per kilo.
For wholesale selling, There were no trading for fancy rice, yellow and white corn in the wholesale level. Rice has decreased price as premium rice was at P38 to P42, with a prevailing price of P39 per kilo on both weeks.
Well-milled rice on the other hand was priced at P36.60 to P37.60 with prevailing price at 37.20 per kilo, a slight decrease from previous week's P38 per kilo.
Regular milled rice was traded from P32.60 to P36.20 the highest and prevailing prices at P35.20, also a decrease from P36 per kilo of the previous week.
As for corngrits, trading started low at P19. 25 to P21 with prevailing prices at P20 per kilo, a P0.50 drop from the previous week.
White corngrits was priced lowest at P27.50 to P35 per kilo, prevailing price at P30, recording a P5 decline from that of the previous week.
The report indicated that the drop in corngrits prices has been attributed to its lesser demand in the wholesale market.
As for retail prices, premium rice were priced at P42 to P45 per kilo with a prevailing price of P42 after the previous weeks' P43 per kilo.
Well-milled rice was at P39 to P41.50 per kilo with prevailing prices lower at P40 compared to previous week's P41 per kilo.
Regular milled rice was at P34 to P38.50 the highest with prevailing prices at P38 per kilo, a steady rate from the previous week.
There was no trading for white and yellow corngrain but prices for yellow corngrits remained steady at P24 while white corngrits dropped from P40 to P38.
The steady and decreased prices were also the same with dealer prices for fertilizer.
Urea prices remained steady at P1,850 per kilo, ammosul also remained steady at P1,000 as well as ammophos which was priced at P1,950. Complete fertilizer prices also remained steady at P1,980.
DA regional director Ricardo Oblena said that the department is still at its active phase of boosting crop production in the region to lower its prices in the market if not make it stable.
He said that despite the previous typhoon, Central Visayas is still able to produce increasing yield which is expected to double as new irrigation infrastructure has been put up in Bohol.