THE National Food Authority (NFA) can only purchase 75 percent of its 790,000 metric tons (MT) palay procurement target in 2026 if El Niño ‘severely’ strikes the local rice sector.
NFA Administrator Larry Lacson expressed confidence that the grains agency could purchase 500,000 MT of unmilled rice in the wet season harvest.
On top of the 92,032 MT that the NFA already procured as of September, its paddy rice purchase could reach 592,032 MT.
The projected figure, however, only constitutes 75 percent of the grains agency’s total target of 790,000 MT for 2026.
‘If the El Niño is severe, I cannot hit 790,000 MT,’ Lacson told reporters in a press conference on Friday.
‘As long as everything [farmers] sell [to the NFA] is clean and dry, we can absorb up to 500,000 MT,’ he said.
The NFA currently purchases wet palay at P22 per kilo and dry palay at P27 per kilo.
Meanwhile, Lacson said the NFA will earmark at least P500 million annually from its corporate receipts to bankroll the modernization of its warehouses starting next year.
‘Starting next year, whether the national government provides a subsidy or not, I will allot at least P500 million from our corporate receipts so we can build and modernize [warehouses], even if it’s just a few,’ Lacson said.
He added that the agency will prioritize modernizing NFA warehouses in geographically isolated, disadvantaged areas (Gida), such as Polillo, Lubang, Batanes, and Casiguran, among others.
‘We really need to do something. It’s expensive to transport there, so the stocks should have been there a long time ago.’
Lacson said the NFA will also build the succeeding warehouses that use renewable energy and equip these with air conditioning systems to prevent the quality of rice stocks from deteriorating.
‘From this time on, we will be building warehouses that use renewable energy, plus the [quality] of stocks won’t deteriorate much because we’ll be building air-conditioned or low-temperature warehouses.’