The National Food Authority (NFA) in the province of Surigao del Sur has intensified its mobile palay procurement program to fully serve the rice farmers in the area.

With a buying price of PHP19 per kilo, more rice farmers in Surigao del Sur will be given assurance of a much higher price compared to the prevailing PHP15 per kilo buying price of local traders.

Daisy M. Luna, the provincial manager of NFA in Surigao del Sur told Philippine News Agency (PNA) on Tuesday that their mobile procurement teams have been deployed to different towns in the province.

Luna said that NFA-Surigao del Sur has 3 warehouses that are ready to procure palay products in the northern, central and southern parts of the province.

“Mobile procurement is our continuing effort to further serve the palay farmers in Surigao del Sur,” Luna said, adding that their Duplex Warehouse in Tandag City that serves the towns in the central part of the province has initially procured 150 bags of dried and clean rice on Tuesday.

The initial 150 bags were procured from the palay farmers of Libas Sud, one of the remote barangays in the town of San Miguel.

The intensified procurement is also mandated under Republic Act 11203 or the Rice Tariffication Law that directs the NFA to maintain buffer stocks of rice in warehouses that can be utilized during calamities, she said.

Luna noted that NFA-Surigao del Sur has an existing Memorandum of Agreement with local government units stipulating that municipalities can directly procure or loan sacks of rice for distribution to their constituents in times of calamities.

The continuing direct procurement through mobile teams is a manifestation that NFA is functioning as a ready market for the palay products of local farmers in the province of Surigao del Sur, Luna said. (PNA)