NFA starts palay buy in western Pangasinan

By Danny O. Sagun

Dagupan City (14 August) — The National Food Authority has announced the start of palay buying operations this harvest season in key production areas in western Pangasinan to assure farmers of a ready market for their produce and beef up government stocks.

The NFA buys palay at P17 per kilogram with an additional incentives of P0.20 per kilo for transporting the produce to NFA warehouses, and P0.30 per kilo as Cooperative Development Incentive Fee. Effective buying price of NFA is P17.40 per kilo for individual farmers and P17.70 per kilo for Farmers’ Organization.

NFA western Pangasinan branch manager Ramon B. Cuaresma said the branch began buying corn this harvest season. The NFA buys clean and dry corn at P13 per kilo and P11.50 per kilo for white corn grains (WGN) and yellow corn grains (YGN), respectively, with additional incentives. For individual farmers, NFA buys white corn grains (WGN) at P13.40 per kilo and yellow corn grains (YGN) at P11.90.

As of August 12 the NFA branch procured 213 bags of white corn and 15,615 bags of yellow corn, or a total of 15,828 bags.

For farmer organizations, WGN is priced P13.70 per kilo, while YGN is P12.20 per kilo.

The agency has started revalidating farmers’ passbook this cropping season and set up six buying stations. Locations of buying stations are as follows: Mangatarem GID warehouse in Umangan, Mangatarem; Alaminos GID warehouse in Pandayan, Alaminos City; Kazenbar warehouse in Tebeng, Dagupan City; Ferrer warehouse in Maniboc, Lingayen; Berex Abalos warehouse in Salay, Mangaldan and Fernandez warehouse in Lucao District, Dagupan City.

Cuaresma also said the branch is ready to extend its services for mechanical drying of palay this wet cropping season to farmers and farmers’ organization as part of the agency’s effort to help farmers in their post harvest facility needs.

NFA mechanical dryers are located at the Mangatarem and Alaminos warehouses. A minimal fee of P12 per bag of 50 kilos with a maximum moisture content of 26 percent is charged for farmers or farmer organizations that sell their palay to NFA. Farmers and farmer organizations that do not sell their palay to NFA are charged with the latest approved drying rate in the province. (PIA Pangasinan)