RP has enough rice, NFA assures public

The National Food Authority assured the public yesterday that the country has an ample supply of rice should the war in the Middle East drag on.

Under the NFA’s "Oplan Paghahanda," the agency has set into motion a contingency plan, including the "full-blast milling" of its palay stocks, even as it has already "effected the transfer of rice from high-producing areas to traditionally deficit and high consumption areas across the country," NFA Administrator Arthur Yap said in a statement.

Oplan Paghahanda is the NFA food security preparedness program launched in February in view of the escalating conflict between the United States and Iraq.

Yap outlined the NFA’s modes of action to secure the country’s supply of rice during a meeting with the National Security Council in Malacañang recently.

Besides Metro Manila, Yap identified the provinces of Batanes, Benguet, Palanan, Quezon, Albay, Catanduanes, Masbate and Palawan in Luzon as "critical areas" in terms of rice supply security.

"We have to undertake full accounting of our available stocks in these areas and identified sources of additional supply, as well as the speed and mode of delivery of rice to these provinces when needed," Yap said.

For Luzon, rice supplies delivered by land will come from the provinces of Isabela and Pangasinan in the north, and Batangas from the south. Batangas is the NFA depot for rice from Mindoro and abroad, he added.

By sea, other sources of rice supply for Luzon include Mindoro, Aurora province and Batangas, Yap said.

For adjacent provinces, rice will delivered by land will arrive in 48 hours, while delivery by sea will take a minimum of five and a maximum of seven days, he said.

Rice for metro Manila will be augmented by direct importation, as the Port of manila is one of the major entry points for rice imports.

San Fernando City NFA provincial information officer Myra Estacio said Pampanga’s rice stocks are enough to feed the entire province over the next 63 days.

As of Friday, Estacio said the NFA warehouses in Pampanga contain 92,446 cavans of rice, bringing the province’s total potential rice supply up to 767,279 cavans.

She said that even with the 12,100-cavan daily consumption requirement of the whole province, the aggregate supply could hold for more than two months.

Since February, the provincial NFA office has conducted dry-runs of 24-hour shifts in preparation for the outbreak of war between US-led forces and Iraq. — Ric Sapnu