CABANATUAN CITY, Nueva Ecija – Prices of commercial rice have begun going down in Nueva Ecija as imported grains augmented government stocks and harvest season started, a monitoring by the National Food Authority (NFA) in the local market showed.
NFA Provincial Manager Genoveva Villar said Thursday that the price per kilogram of commercial rice dropped from PHP47 a few days ago to PHP42.
“Inaasahan natin na kahit paano ay bababa pa ang presyo dahil tumataas na ang supply at dahil umaani na ang ibang magsasaka ay bumababa na rin ang demand from commercial traders (We expect that somehow, the price will further go down due to the rising supply and because other farmers started to harvest, the demand from commercial traders is likewise declining),” she said.
Villar noted that Nueva Ecija received at least 90,000 bags of Thailand rice, which are being delivered to their warehouses in Cabanatuan City, thus raising allocation to accredited retailers from as low as 10 bags to 40 bags per week.
Ricardo Buenaventura, chair of a farmers’ cooperative in Barangay Tabacao, Talavera in this province that has ventured into rice trading, said they have also slashed the price of milled rice by at least PHP1 per kg. The cooperative buys locally produced palay for milling.
Their warehouse was among the 15 facilities inspected by a composite team from the NFA, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Philippine National Police (PNP) and other intelligence units on Wednesday afternoon, where no illegal activity was recorded.
Meanwhile, the NBI and NFA are preparing criminal and administrative charges against a certain rice miller in Gapan City that was found with NFA rice last week. (Marilyn Galang/PNA)
