SAN JOSE DE BUENAVISTA, Antique — The rice buffer stocks of Antique could last up to 44 days, the National Food Authority (NFA) here has reported.
Ma. Jellah O. Minsalan, NFA Antique Marketing Operations Officer, in an interview on Wednesday said that traditionally, Antique, being an agricultural province, is really self-sufficient in rice.
“For our household stocks inventory we have 168,922 bags of rice that would last for 35 days,” she said.
She added that among the local retailers, there are 41,436 bags of rice available that would be good for nine days.
“Per our computation the daily rice consumption of the people in the province is 4,680 bags,” Minsalan said.
She said that with the arrival of the Thailand imported rice and with Antique’s 10,000 bags allocation, the people are now more assured that there would be sufficient rice to meet their consumption in the days to come.
The NFA in the province has started releasing its 3,000 bags of imported rice to its accredited retailers to be sold in the market.
Minsalan said the rice from Thailand arrived at their warehouses in San Jose de Buenavista and Culasi on Monday and Tuesday.
“We have for San Jose de Buenavista 2,000 bags and then in Culasi 1,000 bags,” she said.
“We expect the delivery for the total 10,000 bags to be completed by the weekend,” she said.
She said the imported rice are being sold by the NFA to their 56 accredited retailers in the province at PHP25 per kilo or PHP1,250 per bag.
“Retailers could sell the rice in the market for PHP 27 per kilo,” she said. (Annabel Consuelo Petinglay/PNA)
