MANILA – The National Food Authority should build its rice buffer stock to fight speculation that drives prices of the staple grain higher, a former Agriculture secretary said Monday.
The NFA should have a buffer equivalent to 15 to 30 days of supply, accounting for up to 10 percent of the total supply in the market, said Bohol representative Arthur Yap, who headed the Department of Agriculture under former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
“The NFA’s job is to kill the fires of speculation and you cannot do that if it doesn’t have rice,” Yap told ANC.
Yap said the NFA should time its imports in such a way that it would not compete with the peak harvest.
He said Dutetre administration officials did not seem to have “miscalculated” rice demand, but there was a “policy problem” between the NFA and the import-setting NFA Council, which includes economic managers.
Yap said the government had “no choice” but to import more at this time, even if the peso had weakened to near P54 to the dollar, to boost the NFA’s buffer. (ABS-CBN News)
