NFA reaches highest rice buffer stock in five years

The National Food Authority (NFA) announced on Tuesday that its rice buffer stock has reached 7.17 million bags of milled rice, the highest level in five years.

Farmers were encouraged to sell palay due to the NFA's buying price, which averaged P27 per kilo last year and around P24 this year.

Despite the current high levels, the NFA still has enough funds to purchase more palay, equivalent to approximately 6.3 million bags of milled rice.

So far this year, the NFA has spent only PHP2.6 billion of its available PHP14.6 billion budget for palay procurement, which includes around PHP5.6 billion in carryover from 2024.

The agency is upgrading infrastructure to support a 15-day national rice buffer stock requirement under the revised Rice Tariffication Law (RTL), and plans to procure 880,000 metric tons of palay this year.