The Department of Agriculture (DA) is appealing to local chief executives to ensure unhampered food trade by allowing food deliveries to easily pass through checkpoints to ensure stable food supply in areas that reverted to modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ).
Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar issued the appeal after he received reports of vegetable deliveries bound for Metro Manila that were not allowed to pass through checkpoints in Benguet on the first day of MECQ.
The government has placed Metro Manila, Laguna, Rizal and Bulacan provinces under MECQ from August 4 to 18.
“We are calling on all provincial chief executives and municipal mayors to ensure unhampered flow of food deliveries. We have received initial feedback that some ‘viajeros’ cannot get past checkpoints in Benguet,” Dar said in a news briefing on Tuesday morning.
“So, please let us try to help. We should work with each other. We should be together on this to ensure that no vegetables from Benguet would rot and would reach Metro Manila,” Dar added.
“Let us be united in the pursuit of having to move these food supplies from the provinces toward the metro areas like Metro Manila,” he added.
Agriculture Undersecretary for Operations Ariel T. Cayanan said food passes for cargoes and deliveries carrying food products are not required to secure food passes to be able to transport their goods.
However, if certain local government units (LGUs) would require such passes to be able to pass through checkpoints, then the DA would immediately issue these to ensure unhampered trade of food, Cayanan added.
“Food passes as when it is needed, we are ready to issue but the [Agriculture] Secretary [Dar] is reminding the LGUs [local government units] to be consistent with the implementation of [national guidelines] that anything related to agriculture are considered frontliners, hence, there should be unhampered movement,” he said.
The DA also assured the public that there is no need to resort to panic buying as the country has sufficient food stocks during the MECQ and even until the end of the year based on its supply forecasts.
“Even before the MECQ, the supplies of our prime commodities are sufficient. We remind consumers to just purchase your needed stocks for example good for one week,” Cayanan said.
Based on Dar’s presentation, the country is projected to have a total rice supply this year of 18 million metric tons more than enough to meet the estimated total demand of 14.536 MMT.
For corn, the country would end the year with a surplus of about 4.067 MMT, while chicken meat supply is estimated to have a year-end inventory of as much as 552,256 MT.
Vegetable supply is seen to offset total demand this year with ending stocks reaching 155,838 MT, according to Dar’s presentation.