Well-milled rice prices still up despite drop at farmgate
THE average farm-gate price of palay (unmilled rice) dropped by nearly one percent at the end of September but this was not reflected in retail trade as market prices remained high, data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed.
In its latest price monitoring report, the PSA said the average quotation of palay in the fourth week of September fell by 0.91 percent to P22.93 per kilogram from P23.01/kg recorded in the previous week.
The decline, however, has not yet lowered the average prices of well-milled rice.
The average retail price of well-milled rice increased by 0.41 percent to P49.37/kg from the previous quotation of P49.17/kg.
Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol earlier said the buying price of palay in Mindanao has immediately dipped to P17/kg from an average of P23.04/kg, which could simultaneously lower prices in other regions.
He attributed the fast decline in the prices of palay to the continuous arrival of rice imports in the country.
For 2018 alone, a total of 1.2 million metric tons (MT) of rice are expected to arrive in the country as approved by the National Food Authority (NFA) to boost buffer stocks.
Prices of rice started to soar when the NFA announced in February that its stocks had become depleted.
According to Piñol, the only way to bring down rice prices is to “flood the market” with cheap imported rice, particularly the government-subsidized NFA rice.
The rice imported by the NFA classified as 25 percent broken is aimed at stabilizing market prices by selling them at P27 to P32 per kilo. Private imported rice is at five percent broken and is priced as high as P50 per kilo or higher.
The NFA has a standby authority to import one million MT of rice for 2019.
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