Edegary Roncal, National Food Authority Davao City field office manager, announces their importation of some 20,000 metric tons of Thailand rice due to the recent dry spell that hit the Philippines. (Medel V. Hernani/davaotoday.com)
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — The National Food Authority in this city has imported 166, 000 sacks of rice from Thailand which would be distributed across Davao region and several parts of North Cotabato, an official said Monday.
Edegary Roncal, NFA Davao new managing head, told Kapehan sa Dabaw the new stock of imported rice arrived earlier this month at the Terminal Facilities and Services Corporation (TEFASCO) this city.
Roncal said that 166,000 imported rice were part of the estimated 400,000 sacks of rice or equivalent to 20,000 metric tons being unloaded at the TEFASCO port.
“This is just the first volume that we have received, that is the part of the 250,000 metric tons which was contracted with the Philippine government this remaining months of the year 2016,” she said.
Roncal said the 60 percent of the imported sacks of rice were sourced from Vietnam while the remaining 40 percent came from Thailand suppliers.
She attributed the import of rice to the dry spell that struck the country earlier this year. “If we can recall, few months back, we have experience severe crop damage due long drought season all through out the country and because of that definitely our expected volume locally from our farmers needs to be augmented as our food requirement was severely affected so we need to import.”
The government, Roncal added, opted to import which will form part of the buffer stocks at the end of 2016 and until the first quarter of 2017.
“Right now, we are experiencing main crop harvest of ‘ alay’ now but due to the recently concluded damaged from the dry season, the expected harvest for the remaining month of the year coming from the main crop season is not sufficient to supply our food buffer stock inventory at the end of 2016,” she said.
Roncal announced that the next foreign vessel loaded with sacks of imported rice will arrive this week not later in Oct. 15- (davaotoday.com)
