WV Rice Stock Enough Despite El Niño

ILOILO CITY, – Western Visayas has enough rice stocks despite the advent of El Niño, the National Food Authority (NFA) here said.

NFA assistant regional director Vilma Zarraga said that the region has enough rice in the market despite low rice production this year.

She said that rice farmers where also able to harvest modest amount of rice in the first and second cropping. Only those farmers who planted rice in the third cropping were affected by the weather phenomenon, she added.

According to Zarraga, it seemed El Niño’s effect to local rice production was lower than expected.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) said that rice production in the region did not suffer much since most crops were harvested by the time El Niño struck in Region 6.
Since NFA continued to buy rice from farmers during the El Niño, they were able to have enough stock of rice. NFA also noted that despite reports of decreased rice production, farmers were still selling their produce to the NFA.

Based on its current inventory, the region has around five million sacks of rice enough to sustain the need of its six provinces for the next 77 days. (PNA) /MP