Bicol stockpiles rice for typhoon months
By Rey M. Nasol
LEGAZPI CITY -- Bicol will have an adequate supply of rice enough for the next three months even if a strong typhoon or Mayon Volcano erupts and sends hundreds of thousands of evacuees to their temporary shelters, particularly in Albay.
A top official of the regional office of the National Food Authority here assured Albay Gov. Joey Salceda and the other provincial governors in Bicol that there is enough supply of rice from October to December this year.
Edgar Ventulan, NFA Bicol regional director, said Friday the agency maintains a rice stock of at least 1.7 million bags of rice ready for disposal in the next three months.
Ventulan said the NFA has a buffer stock, including the 1.15 million bags of imported rice and some 683,000 bags, which were acquired through the agency's rice procurement program.
Among the provinces of the region, Albay has a stock position of 650,382 bags that can last up to 123 days; Camarines Sur with 227,351 good for 44 days; Sorsogon, 99,931 for 67 days; Camarines Norte, 92,722 for 69 days; Masbate, 50,174 for 36 days; and Catanduanes, 30,412 good for 22 days.
He added that some 1.05 bags of palay were also purchased by the NFA from the local farmers under the palay procurement program.
The agency, according to Ventulan, has purchased some 750,673 from Camarines Sur; 127,131 from Albay; 84,979 from Camarines Norte;, 44,638 from Masbate; 40,638 from Sorsogon; and 3,971 from Catanduanes.
Edwin S. Ataiza from the regional supervising grains operations office, said Friday that the daily rice consumption in Bicol is pegged at 42,980 bags while the daily average sale of the agency is around 16,000 bags.
“The 42,980 bags, based on the daily regional consumption, is enough to feed the whole region even if in times of calamities, which makes the stock to last shorter than the time it would take without calamities,” said Ataiza.
He explained that when there is no calamity the same stock (1.7 million) might even stretch to a five-month period because of the participation of private traders.
“When there is no calamity, other people buy their rice from private traders but when there is a calamity, we dispose rice at faster rates because of a memorandum of agreement between the NFA and the local government units, which (tends to) boost the flow of rice from the NFA to the people, particularly those who are affected,” Ataiza said.
Rice importation for this year which is allocated for Bicol is some 2.6 million bags.
The NFA is expecting to import more next year since palay production, according to the Department of Agriculture-Bicol regional office, is expected to go down until the end of this year following several typhoons that wrought havoc to rice plantations in the region.
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