CITY OF MALOLOS — Commercial palay prices for clean and dry quality grains have been sliding down as the harvest season peaks .

Several rice traders at the Intercity Industrial Estate in Bocaue town, a major rice trading center in Bulacan, claimed that clean and dry palay prices during the Holy Week have averaged at P31.00 per kilo but has now gone below P30.00 per kilo.

Tony Santos, a wholesale rice trader at the said rice trading center has confirmed to ARKIPELAGO NEWS BULACAN that currently, palay prices have gone down to an average of P27.00 per kilo for the clean and dry palay.

He added that many rice traders have refrain from procuring unhusked rice grains since these are expected to go down in the next several days to an average of P26.00 per kilo for the clean and dry palay.

At P27.00 per kilo of palay, average production cost for a 50-kilogram sack of rice at a 60 percent milling recovery translate to P2,070 per sack and may go higher if the rice milling recovery rate falls below 60 percent, the rice traders pointed out.

They added that wholesale local commercial rice prices per 50-kilo sack averages from P2,300.00 to P2,350.00 per sack depending on the rice milling recovery rate.

It can be recalled that recently, the government support price for dry and clean palay was raised to P30 per kilogram, depending on the prevailing market price in a given province, said Raul Montemayor, national chairman of the Federation of Free Farmers 

Previously, the NFA bought dry and clean palay for P19 to P23 per kilogram.

Montemayor also confirmed that based on their monitoring commercial clean and dry palay prices in the different provinces of the country average at P27.00 per kilo.

He also noted that raising the government support price for palay procurement is a little bit late since the harvest season has already peaked, but it is also a welcomed development for farmers who have yet to harvest their crops.

Overall, Montemayor said that the country has enough rice stocks, thanks to the arrival of imported rice stocks

He added that he is hopeful the arrival of the imported rice stocks will not be compromised by smuggled rice stocks that led to the closure of several rice mills in Bulacan last year for having suspected smuggled rice stocks.

He added that they still have no update on what happened to the rice stocks that were suspected to be smuggled rice.

Customs officials said that once the rice stocks have been proven to be smuggled, it will be confiscated and donated to the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

📷 Mon Lazaro