DA orders NFA: Purchase 100,000 bags of corn from Kalinga farmers

TABUK, Kalinga — The national government recently ordered officials of the National Food Authority to buy over 100,000 bags of corn from farmers in Kalinga Province to cushion the impact of the very low price of corn during the present cropping, especially to the livelihood of the corn growers.

The directive was given by ranking officials of the Department of Agriculture after a consultation with DA regional officials and farmer leaders of Region 2, which is supplying a large volume of corn to supply dealers in the country over the past several years.

For this cropping season, corn prices dropped to as low as P5 per kilo from the previous P10 to P12 per kilo.

According to the farmers, the current prevailing price will not allow them to recover the huge production cost which they have invested to produce one of the country’s staple food.

Local agriculturists here claimed that the 100,000 procurement quota could be sufficient to accommodate the production of corn farmers for the present cropping season which is estimated to be over five tons.

Upon receipt of the directive, the NFA provincial office in Kalinga, which is being supervised and administered by the NFA Region 2 office, started its corn procurement from the thousands of corn farmers in the different parts of the province who have existing passbooks with the said office.

At present, the price offered to corn farmers is P10.40 per kilo of corn while farmer cooperatives are offered P10.70 per kilo since the P0.30 mark up will be given to the cooperatives as their incentives.

Several corn dealers in the province admitted they have already lost their business this cropping season and started to look for other ventures because the demand for corn by feed millers significantly went down because of cheaper wheat which is being imported by concerned importers.

Aside from Kalinga, other corn-producing areas in the region include the low-lying communities of Mountain Province and Ifugao which were also greatly affected by the sudden drop in the buying price of corn that resulted to their incurring huge losses.

Local officials, who are being pestered by the affected corn farmers to make the necessary representations with concerned government agencies to remedy the situation, welcomed the decision of DA officials to purchase a huge volume of corn from the farmers, saying that the same should be a continuing procurement to mitigate the effects of the drop in corn prices. – Dexter A. See