The National Food Authority (NFA) in Eastern Pangasinan has 300,000 50-kilo bags of unhusked rice and 54,000 bags of clean rice as buffer stock, an official said Monday.

In an interview, NFA Eastern Pangasinan branch manager Frederick Dulay said the stock could last the province’s population for 10 days.

“This only covers supply in our storage facilities and does not include those in the market aside from government rice,” he said in Filipino.

Dulay said they have also been buying palay (unhusked rice) from the farmers since the first week of October, paying PHP30 per kilo for clean, dry Class A palay and PHP27.30 per kilo for Class B.

He said farmers started receiving purchase orders from their office, signaling the NFA’s intent to buy their produce.

Nonetheless, Dulay said they still welcome local government units to add a premium to the prevailing palay buying price to further encourage local farmers to sell to the NFA.

He said they also hope the El Niño phenomenon will not significantly affect supply in the coming months.

“Hopefully, we will get through the El Niño, since the province is known as one of the country’s top rice-producing provinces,” he said. (PNA)