Farmers earning more from harvest

National Food Authority Administrator Arthur Yap said yesterday farmers are getting better income from their summer harvest or palagad crop whether they opt to call their palay to NFA or to private grains traders as the buying price of traders for palay approximates and at times even exceeds the government support price.

The NFA has increased its buying price for palay P0 to P10 per kg for the "palagad" harvest. This is exclusive of the P50 per kg incentives for drying, transport and cooperative development fund given to farmer organizations selling the NFA individual farmers, on the other hand will avail of an effective price of P10.25 per kg for their produce while the remaining P.25 will accuse to the cooperative where they are members for post harvest facility build up fund.

Meanwhile, as of the second week of April, the commercial ex-farm price of palay averaged at P9.54 pr kg nationwide Central Visayas registered a high P10.30 per kg palay buying price while the Ilocos and Central Luzon Regions posted P9.02 and P0.01 per kg buying price respectively.

Other regions that registered a relatively high ex-farm price of palay this cropping season are Southern Tagalog at P9.80 per kg, followed by Western Visayas at P9.77 and Western Mindanao at P9.69 per kg.

This means that the high buying price of NFA serves as a price pull mechanism and a bench mark for traders which augurs well for our farmers," Yap said. The NFA also serves as alternative marker for the farmers where they can sell their produce at a better price, he added.

While the high ex-farm price of palay may deter the NFA from meeting its procurement target for the first quarter, Yap stressed that even with limited funds, the NFA is effectively fulfilling its mandate of influencing the ex-farm price of palay to move to levels that give the farmers better income and fair return on their investments.

As of the second week of April also, NFA’s daily average procurement was pegged at 1,108 metric tons or 22,108 bags of 50 kg. Total procurement from January has reached 945,785 bags or 22 percent of the target for the period.

Yap also informed that with 434 buying stations strategically located in palay producing areas of the country the NFA is still ready to buy as much as 1 million bags of palay with its P474 million cereal procurement fund for the semester.