From the average 6,000 bags monthly average sales during “normal
days”, the volume went up to more than 76,000 bags in the past four weeks, said
Raymond Tafalla, NFA Eastern Visayas assistant regional manager, in an
interview.
Tafalla said since the arrival of the first shipment of Thailand
rice on the third week of August, the NFA has been distributing an average of
2,544 bags daily, way more than the 200 bags average daily sales last year.
“The higher demand is expected because the price of commercial
rice is high. We are ready to provide the rice requirement in the region while
the price has not yet stabilized,” Tafalla said.
In the last two weeks of August, the NFA sold 15,479 bags of rice.
From September 1 to 18, at least 61,167 bags have been distributed to
consumers.
Emma Dagami, 49, of Caloogan village, this town, has to walk five
kilometers to buy five kilograms of rice from a makeshift store set up outside
the NFA office here. The supply is enough for the family’s three-day staple
requirement.
“Our income from vegetables farming is very minimal. If we will
buy rice at PHP50 per kilogram, we won’t have budget to buy fish and other
needs,” Dagami said.
As of Wednesday, the region’s state-run warehouses have stocks of
149,558 bags coming from two rice shipments.
After months of zero stocks, the region received on August 17 at
least 79,000 bags of rice, representing the first batch of rice allocation for
the region. After a few days, another ship unloaded 140,000 bags.
The unloading of 100,000 bags is ongoing this week at the Tacloban
seaport. The region expects to receive 161,000 bags of Thai rice to complete
the 480,000-bag local requirement until end of December.
Teams have been deployed to the market to make sure that
government rice is being sold at a cheaper price or at PHP 32 per kilo.
Commercial rice is available in the regional capital at PHP39 to
PHP54 per kilo, up from the PHP35 to PHP45 price range early this year. (SQM/PNA)
No comments:
Post a Comment