Monday, July 21, 2008 Commercial rice price decreases By Edmund B. Sestoso
THE National Food Authority (NFA) announced recently that the price of commercial rice in most of the province's public markets has decreased from P1.00 to P2.00 per kilogram.
NFA Information Officer Rolando Lazalita said the decrease of the commercial rice price started from the first week of July, which can be attributed to the massive infusion of government-subsidized rice stocks into the market.
"Commercial rice dealers have the option to decrease its price as most of the consumers prefer to line up for cheaper NFA rice," said Lazalita in media interviews recently.
He also said that more sacks of rice have been released to NFA outlets in the provinces.
The NFA official cited that Dumaguete City Public Market received 30 sacks of rice daily for the Bigasan ni Gloria sa Palengke, another 100 bags to each municipalities, and 60 for the community-based or barangays weekly.
He said in Negros Oriental, there are now 74 rice retailers for the Bigasan ni Gloria sa Palengke, 184 Tindahan Natin retailers in the barangays, two local government unit rolling stores, 36 under the congressional funds, and 26 retailers for Handog sa Parokya program.
Lazalita added that local leadership of the food agency is eyeing the possibility of increasing the number of retailers for Bigasan sa Barangay under the barangay captains. This will avoid consumer congestions in some stalls.
However, he said rice allocations in all outlets will be lesser but the distribution is accessible all over the province.
"The inflow of commercial rice from Mindanao and other regions in the country also contributed to the decline of prices of rice," he said.
Recently, the grains agency organized the Palengke Watch Team to monitor and regulate the supply and price of rice in the area.
This after the prices of commercial rice skyrocketed that saw thousands of people buying NFA cheap rice.
Lazalita said the declining price trend was also boosted by the onset of palay harvest, although this is not yet the peak harvest season, especially in the areas within the main waterways of irrigation canals.
