Aside from the higher buying price of palay, the National Food Authority (NFA) wants to increase the number of drying facilities to improve the country’s buffer stock of rice.

NFA Director Larry Lacson explained that they are closely coordinating with the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) on various programs that would help maintain ample rice stock.

“Our challenge [when it comes to drying facilities] is that we’re low on quantity. At the moment, we are fixing bids in order to construct additional infrastructure, and we’re hoping next year, we’ll build more," Lacson said.

Since imposing a higher buying price on palay, the NFA’s rice buffer stock has tripled its amount within May.

“Because of the flexible pricing fee, we acquired 2.8 million bags of palay, and 126,000 metric tons [MT] of milled rice. Our target for the year is 300,000 MT for milled, so before we implemented the increased buying price, we had 45,000 MT,” he said. 

Asked about the expected onset of La Niña, Lacson believes that there will not be any inefficiency in stock level, and it is enough for the rainy season.

“At the same time, we have given some supplies to the Department of Social Welfare and Development [DSWD] for prepositioning. We also provided rice to some local government units [LGUs]. We also see ample rice stock in the private sector and household,” he added.

The local well-milled rice in public markets range from P48 to P55 per kilo, while local regular milled rice are around P45 to P53 per kg.

Subsequently, a kilo of imported well-milled has an average of P53 to P58, whereas imported regular milled per kilo is at around P49 to P51.