Explain warehouse congestion, NFA urged

MANILA, Philippines — Former agriculture secretary Leonardo Montemayor yesterday urged the National Food Authority to disclose the real reason for the congestion in its warehouses after the NFA disclosed that at least 300,000 metric tons of aging rice needed to be disposed.

“According to the Department of Agriculture, one of the major objectives of a declaration of a food security emergency is to enable the National Food Authority to decongest its warehouses by selling 300,000 tons of rice buffer stock. This would, in turn, supposedly open up storage space for the palay that NFA would be procuring from farmers during the harvest period starting next month,” Montemayor said.

Montemayor was referring to the recommendation of the National Price Coordinating Council to the DA to declare a food security emergency to address the high retail price of rice and empower the NFA to sell its aging stocks to local government units.

“The NFA, through its nationwide network of warehouses, has a total storage capacity of 1,200,000 tons in palay or rice form. In what warehouses and locations is congestion happening?” he added.

Agriculture Assistant Secretary and spokesman Arnel de Mesa has said that Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. is expected to approve the food security emergency on Jan. 22.

“If, say, in Occidental Mindoro, why weren’t their stocks shipped out earlier to other areas within or outside Region 4-B?” Montemayor asked.

Montemayor recalled that from July to December 2024, the Philippines was hit by a series of destructive typhoons.

De Mesa has said that while there is no cause for alarm amid the impending declaration of the food security emergency on rice, there is an extraordinary increase in the retail price of the staple which will warrant it.