Palay price still down – PSA
Credit to Author: EIREENE JAIREE GOMEZ| Date: Wed, 01 May 2019 16:18:31 +0000
THE farmgate average price of palay (unmilled rice) continued to fall in the first week of April as local farmers remained under pressure due to the expected arrival of cheaper imports under the terms of the new rice regime.
In its latest price monitoring report, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said the average farmgate price of palay further dropped by 0.53 percent to P18.70 per kilo from the previous week’s P18.80.
Likewise, it fell by 9 percent from P20.55 per kilo in the same period a year ago.
Citing reports from the National Food Authority, National Economic and Development Authority Assistant Secretary Mercedita Sombillam said they continue to purchase local farmers’ produce as part of its buffer stocking management role under the Rice Tariffication Law.
“NFA is indeed buying. It has not stop buying rice [from local farmers.] The price of rice going down in this time of the year is probably because of the peak of the harvest season. So we will have so much rice from farmer-produce,” she said.
“If you look at the statistics…comparing [it to] the statistics not last year but the years before that, is still within the ball-mark figure. We consider the 2018 a very abnormal one because of the situation that took place at that time. There was an issue with the scarcity of supply and anything else that could really follow,” Sombilla added.
The NFA ordered its first importation of 500,000 metric tons (MT) of rice in April last year to augment the supply of subsidized rice in the market. In 2018 alone, the NFA has imported a total of 1.25 million MT under the government-to-government scheme (500,000 MT) and open tender scheme (750,000 MT).
The presence of cheaper imported rice has reportedly led to the sustained drop in farmgate palay prices. “If we compare farmgate prices which are prevailing now with those the years before 2018, there is really not much of difference,” Sombilla said.
Meanwhile, the PSA said the average wholesale price of well-milled rice in the first week of April dropped by 0.35 percent to P40.16 per kilo from a week ago. Likewise, it went down by 1.79 percent from last year’s P40.89.
At retail trade, the average price of well-milled rice was at P43.87 per kilo, down 0.25-percent from a week ago but 0.35 percent up from the same period last year. The average wholesale price of regular-milled rice, on the other hand, fell by 0.57 percent to P36.40 per kilo. Year-on-year, it fell further by 2.44 percent.
PSA said its equivalent price at retail level was pegged at P39.55 per kilo, 0.68 percent and 0.90 percent lower than the average prices a week and a year ago, respectively.
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