NFA-Ifugao strengthens procurement strategies

By Marcelo L. Lihgawon

Saturday 7th of July 2012

ALFONSO LISTA, Ifugao, July 7 (PIA) -- The National Food Authority (NFA) in the province has set various strategies to intensify its palay and white corn procurement program.

This is in support to the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) food staple self-sufficiency program (FSSP).

The FSSP is the banner program of the DA’s Agrikulturang Pilipino (AgriPinoy) framework, concerned with food security and self-sufficiency in rice and other staples aimed at ensuring there is enough food for each Filipino family.

Antonio Macato, NFA officer-in-charge, said that the strategies include the mobile farmer’s passbook processing and accreditation, grassroot procurement and advocacy campaign of moisture content determination.

Macato told that their office has already started the implementation of these schemes that benefitted famers’ groups and individual farmers as well. He explained that NFA teams are going directly to the communities to conduct house-to-house farmer’s passbook processing and accreditation as a way of helping them to avail NFA’s services.

“Our office has relaxed or simplified the requirements on processing and issuance of NFA grains procurement passbook. The procedure now is more easier unlike before so they can easily obtain passbooks,” he added.

Macato reiterated that they are also conducting on the site procurement in the different municipalities wherein farmers can sell their palay and white corn with lesser expense or none at all.

Furthermore, Macato said that NFA is also conducting advocacy campaign of moisture content determination, classification and stock pricing of farmers’ palay and corn grains produced directly at the farm level.

“This is to provide the farmers knowledge or idea of the real stock classification, moisture content and value of their produce compared with that of that trader’s classification and offered buying price,” Macato said. (MBL, PIA – CAR/Ifugao)