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HAS the
lean season crept in much earlier in
Central Luzon with the queues of buyers of the P18.25-kg
government-subsidized rice becoming noticeably longer?
Some of
those lining up for rice from as early as 7 a.m. were
visibly irked, perhaps for being uncomfortably exposed
under the scorching sun while waiting for the store to
open at around
9 a.m. to get their limited share of 2-kg National Food Authority (NFA)
rice. Some were just short of getting unruly, it was
observed.
Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, in a dzMM radio
interview from Rome Wednesday morning, also expressed
alarm over further rise in commercial rice prices,
notably in Mindanao. He explained, however, that: “It is
traditional that prices [of rice] go up when the lean
season sets in.”
Yap is
attending the one-week high-level meeting on global food
crisis led by the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization in
Rome,
Italy.
While
prices of commercial rice in
Mindanao have reportedly risen up to P50/kg level, those in
Central
Luzon have, however, remained within P32/kg to P35/kg.
Common rice consumers, however, could apparently hardly
afford that price level, so they had to bear the
difficulties in lining up for the cheaper NFA rice.
NFA
Central Luzon manager Nicolas Crisostomo recently
predicted of a “much earlier lean season” because of the
continued rise in prices of other basic commodities.
“The
price of oil pushes up the cost of other commodities,
including transportation fare and other food products,”
he said.
The
global price of oil had indeed shot up in the latter
part of May. It triggered rise in prices of local
commodities, hence this perceived early lean season in
the basically agricultural
Central Luzon region.
The lean
season usually starts in the beginning of the third
quarter of each year especially in Central Luzon when
farmers are waiting for the next rice harvest time in
mid-October.
Lean
season also means a virtual standstill in local
businesses because consumers do not have money to spend.
The NFA
attributed the longer rice queues to the speculation
raised during the height of the rice crisis among the
better-off consumers, believing that most of the rice
stocks had been kept in the houses of middle-income
families now.
As of
April, around 2.05 million bags of imported rice were
intact in NFA warehouses in the region, while about
1,319,500 bags were with commercial traders and some
2,370,200 bags were in households, government report
showed.
These
combined stocks are expected to last for 83 days.
In Nueva
Ecija, where the harvesting in about 300,000 hectares of
rice lands were already completed, the NFA continued to
release its stocks of 1,115,201 sacks to accredited
retailers, and church and Department of Social Welfare
and Development outlets at 60,000 bags every month.
NFA
Nueva Ecija chief Edelino Alejandro said around 300,000
sacks had been set for release during the lean season
starting July at the rate of 100,000 sacks each month.
Food
officials apparently failed at the height of the rice
crisis to see that the situation would improve in the
middle of May. |
