THE National Food Authority (NFA) plans to set up additional buying stations in major rice-producing areas during the main harvest to ensure that the attached agency under the Department of Agriculture (DA) would be able to buy its target of 500,000 metric tons (MT) of palay.

Currently, the NFA has an existing 350 operational buying stations in palay-producing areas nationwide.

The NFA is buying clean and dry palay with 14-percent moisture content and a minimum of 95-percent purity at P17 per kilogram.

In addition to this, the NFA is granting an additional incentive of P1,800 to farmers for every 50 bags of 50 kilograms of palay sold to the agency.

Most of the agency’s buying stations are in major palay-producing areas. Region 4 has 52 buying stations, followed by Region 2 with 46, Region 3 with 35 and Region 6 with 22 operating at present.

The NFA is also putting up mobile procurement teams to serve farmers in remote and far-flung areas who find it hard to deliver their produce to the NFA. Most buying stations are stationary and located in the agency’s owned and leased warehouses.

NFA Administrator Jessup Navarro said the Cereal  Procurement  Funds  were  sent  in  advance  to  the  regional  and provincial offices for their initial buying activities to serve farmers who were able to  harvest early and  wanted to sell their palay to the agency.

Central office personnel will be fielded to act as special disbursing officers and cashiers to complement  the  additional  stationary buying stations and mobile procurement teams during the main harvest.

Employees who will act as quality-assurance officers are now undergoing training and skills development to better equip them once they are assigned for field operations.

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NFA eyes more buying stations for palay during main harvest

THE National Food Authority (NFA) plans to set up additional buying stations in major rice-producing areas during the main harvest to ensure that the attached agency under the Department of Agriculture (DA) would be able to buy its target of 500,000 metric tons (MT) of palay.

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