URDANETA CITY – Rice farmers are enjoying a good harvest but they have another reason to rejoice following President Macapagal-Arroyo’s directive to the National Food Authority (NFA) to buy more palay from them, an official of the party-list group Abono said.
Ponciano Onia Jr., Abono president, said Ms Arroyo announced during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday that the NFA would buy 20 percent of palay production this harvest season or 10 percent of the total production this year.
Officials and representatives of farmers’ groups in Pangasinan, the Ilocos and Nueva Ecija attended that meeting, he said.
Onia said the directive means the NFA would buy two million metric tons (MT) of palay this year.
P24-billion budget
The NFA’s budget for procuring palay is P24 billion, up from its original budget of P8.7 billion, he said.
Farmers prefer to sell their produce to the NFA because its buying price is P17 a kilogram, which is higher than the traders’ price of P15 per kilogram or less.
In Pangasinan, the projected rice harvest from October to December is 756 MT. Onia said the NFA will buy 151 MT of this projected harvest.
He said the farmers are thankful that Ms Arroyo heeded their request to increase the palay procurement. The NFA was supposed to buy only five percent of the total production this year.
“This means that if we have collective voice, the national leadership will listen to us,” Onia said.
He said the NFA would also buy palay from individual farmers and pay them in cash. He said the agency used to buy palay only from farmers’ cooperatives and organizations.
Abono officials, Onia said, have been asked to visit palay-producing towns to inform farmers about the procurement policies of the NFA.
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