NFA assures enough rice supply

CEBU, Philippines – The National Food Authority-7  has assured Central Visayas has enough rice buffer stocks for towns affected by typhoon Ruby (Hagupit).

NFA-7 information officer Lucy Rosales told The FREEMAN yesterday the grains agency has already released stocks to various local government units, the Social Welfare Department and the Office of Civil Defense for their relief efforts.

“As far as our inventories are concerned, we have adequate supply of rice despite some withdrawals from other LGUs,” the official claimed.

Between December 4 and 7, the NFA already released 17,611 rice bags for Region 7 and 16,736 rice bags for Cebu towns which were hit by typhoon Ruby.

“[Healthy] atong buffer stock and we have sufficient inventory despite nga nakahatag na ta og rice issuances,” Rosales said, adding their operations center has received requests from local government officials for NFA supply even before the typhoon hit.

She also said a new foreign vessel has been unloading rice imports in the country since Monday, as part of the additional 500,000 metric tons of rice the nation is buying from grain suppliers Thailand and Vietnam.

Another foreign ship also delivered imports during last week of November, she added.

She added the region has received an additional 328,000 bags of rice from national imports since October.

The NFA recently expressed its plans of importing an additional 600,000 metric tons to increase buffer stocks in 2015 after the typhoon damaged crops in various provinces.

Rosales said they have not yet received any information as to how many of these imports the region will be receiving soon.