Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar assures the public that there will be enough affordable rice available in the markets, following his twin orders to the National Food Authority (NFA).

Earlier this week, Dar directed NFA to unload 3.6 million bags of stocks in their warehouses to flood markets with P27 per kilo rice and increase the buying price of palay to P19.

On September 13, Dar made early rounds at the Commonwealth market to check if NFA rice is being sold at its prescribed price.

While vendors are accustomed to selling commercial rice at P40/kilo, they are willing to sell NFA rice to provide consumers inexpensive options.

With the flooding of P27/kilo rice, Dar is positive that commercial rice will be sold at lower price.

“We need to also have an impact in the market, para susunod lahat. Dito [sa Commonwealth Market], kahit walang NFA may P30-32 and that’s a good starting impact. In the future we hope to see prices starting at P27 pataas hanggang P35 at wag naman sana more than P40,” Dar explained.

Dar added, “Balancing mechanism natin ‘yan, para walang magmamanipula, and we will see to it na bababa po ‘yung presyo sa mga merkado natin. And this is the start where the people will be able to buy quality rice at P 27”.The NFA is set to flood markets with low-priced rice on a national scale before October 10, or until stocks last. ### (Ela Arciaga, DA-AFID)