Local rice supply out of stock in Iloilo
The National Food Authority-Iloilo is now supplying imported rice to accredited rice outlets in the province after the agency ran out of local rice supply.
Hedy Jardeleza, NFA provincial manager, said the limited local rice supply is an effect of the El Niño that brought prolonged dry spell.
The drought in the past months have affected crop harvests all over the country.
“The farmers are not yet selling to us because this is not yet harvest season,” she said.
The harvest season could extend up to the last week of October or first week of November, instead of the regular harvest season from August to September, she said.
Jardeleza, however, said the NFA has sufficient rice supply to augment the local markets because imported rice arrived in Iloilo, from the NFA Central Office in Manila only last month.
The imported rice came from Vietnam and Thailand.
Around 500, 000 bags of imported rice are currently stocked at the NFA-Iloilo warehouse in preparation for lean season, emergency and any calamity that may happen in the province for the year.
In fact, Jardeleza said that based on their market plan, Iloilo needs only 410,000 bags of rice to supplement the whole year while the remaining supplies are reserved for purposive distribution.
“We have unpredictable season. Currently, planted rice crops are vulnerable to damage because rainy days are also the so-called typhoon season,” she said.
NO OLD RICE STOCKS
Jardeleza said NFA-Iloilo is not keeping old rice stocks in their warehouse like those in Metro Manila as revealed by President Benigno Simeon Aquino III in his first State of the Nation Address last week.
Aquino said that NFA is letting bags of rice rot in their warehouses despite the fact that four million Filipinos are not able to eat three times a day.
Jardeleza said there are no carried-over stocks from last year to their present rice inventory.
Iloilo province consumes 21,000 bags of rice per day and there are 657,700 sacks rice currently kept inside the NFA warehouse intended for Iloilo province until end of the month.
Jardeleza said they were even able to augment rice supplies to deficit areas like Zamboanga and other provinces in Region 8 a few months ago.
“We also help other deficit areas if we have excess stocks here,” she said.
