Tagum City — The provincial Grains Retailers Confederation (GRECON) in Davao del Norte last week asked rice traders and millers to release stocks of palay and rice to avoid losses since retailers are now ready to sell cheaper rice from the National Food Authority.

In an interview during the recently held consultative meeting on rice situation in Davao del Norte, GRECON Provincial President Odylon Manco said “we are giving them a red light to think whether to hold on to their stocks or release them.”

Manco said this as he bared moves of rice retailers to become conduits of NFA to flood the market with much lower priced rice at P35 and P25 a kilo to stabilize the prices of the staple food.

Prices of rice in Mindanao were monitored to have soared to a level of P45 to more than P50 early this month.

These levels are expected to go down within the week as NFA is pumping the market with commercial rice.

In Davao del Norte alone, Manco said about 800,000 bags of NFA commercial rice at P35 per kilo is expected to arrive this week aside from the 800,000 bags at P25 per kilo that will also be made available this week.

Retailers have joined the market level auction and availed of NFA rice stocks to be sold at commercial outlets, Manco explained.

GRECON has 270 member rice retailers in Davao del Norte and 37 member outlets of Bigasan ni Gloria sa Palengke whose supply of NFA rice sold at P18.25 has been raised to 140 bags a week from 70 bags a week, Manco said.

“Mobarato gyod ang bugas,” he said.

Agriculture Secretary Yap who was with President Gloria Arroyo in her recent visit to Mati City said NFA rice supply in the market has been raised to 25 percent to 35 percent “to stabilize the price of (commercial) rice.”

Yap noted that a few weeks ago, the price of commercial rice in certain parts of Mindanao went up to P45, even P50 a kilo, but it has since dropped to P30 or lower per kilo after the NFA “pumped” huge quantities of government-subsidized rice in Mindanao.

Yap said NFA will release six million to seven million bags of the cereal to the country’s rice supply chain a month.

“In Davao, we are already distributing more than 25 percent” of the old rice allocation for the province, Yap said.

With the arrival of additional supply, he expected the price of the staple in Davao region to “greatly stabilize.” PIA