The Department of Agriculture urged the incoming Marcos administration to empower the National Food Authority (NFA) by increasing its capacity to stock more rice.

At present, DA Secretary William Dar said the NFA has only P7 billion annual budget which can only accommodate to buffer stock rice for seven days.

Dar said the administration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. should focus on increasing the rice buffer stock of the country to at least 30 days.

"Based on the rice tariffication law, the NFA's mandate is only for buffer-stocking. we can use this strategy to increase the number of days," said Dar.

He said the current seven-day buffer stock is too thin a stock specially that the world is facing food crisis amid the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.

In China and India for instance, he said the two countries have stock of rice for one year.

Amid the lack of fund, Dar recommended that the next administration must infuse more funds not only to stock more rice but also to allocate more funds to expand the NFA facilities to accommodate up to 30 days of stocks.

Currently, Dar said the NFA facilities can only accommodate rice stocks good for 15 days.

If the Marcos administration would start focusing on improving the rice stock by July this year, Dar said the country would have a maximum stock rice.

"Once this was focused on, the next step is to infuse budget for capital expenditure in order to expand the capacity of NFA facilities to accommodate rice stocks good for 30 days," he said.

Dar said that initially, his recommendation is to revive the NFA stores which could sell P27 per kilo of rice.

But he said the target customers for the NFA rice must be the beneficiaries of the government's dole-out program or the 4Ps (Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program).

Citing government data, Dar said there are some 4.4 million families enrolled in 4Ps programs.