Palay harvest season starts early

San Juan, La Union—The National Food Authority announced that palay harvest season in some parts of the region has started this early.

Dir. Carlito G. Co said that this is a welcome development for the food agency which intends to buy around 1.4 million bags of palay from farmers this coming procurement season.

“Traditionally, our farmers in the region start to harvest their produce at the late part of September and early to middle part of October. This will intensify until November. But reports from our field offices proved otherwise as farmers in Dingras and Solsona in Ilocos Norte has started harvesting their palay as early as the last week of August. There are also reports of early harvest in some areas of Alaminos City and Mangatarem in Pangasinan”, Dir. Co said.

This early harvest, Co added, is seen to give further boost to the rice stocks in the region although he said that the level of the agency’s buffer stock for the region is still at a safe level. Buffer stocks refer to the maintenance of the food agency of a year round strategic rice reserve at a minimum level of 15 days of the nation’s rice consumption requirement at any given time.

EARLY HARVEST. Nelson Corpuz of Talugtog, Solsona, Ilocos Norte carries his harvest from his irrigated land on September 3, 2013. This early harvest, NFA said, is a welcome development as it will help boost the rice stocks of the food agency and stabilize the price of rice in the market.

Photo courtesy of Diana Marie G. Agustin.

Co said that the agency’s monitoring of farmers harvest is part of their procurement strategy where the NFA intends to capture a sizable portion of the palay produced by farmers during the main cropping season for the country’s food security stocks.

“We have to be aware of such activities in order for us to make sure that we could procure from our farmers. While at this point, ex-farm price of palay is still high, we are hoping to establish our presence as ready market for the farmers to sell their produce. Our instruction to our field offices is to make sure that our services will reach the most interior farms in the region. That is the reason why we will be fielding mobile procurement teams which will cater to those farmers who find it hard to transport their palay to our buying stations”, disclosed Co.

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