Biliran tops rice
sufficiency in EV, Northern Samar places lowest
By FRED PADERNOS (PIA 8 intern)
May
2, 2008
TACLOBAN CITY, Leyte
– Rice traders in the Province of Biliran will find rice a saucy
business these days, as the place is on the top in the rice
sufficiency share for the whole region. Because of the reported rice
shortage, rice is selling like hot cakes which mean more profit to the
small and big rice business operators.
The Department of
Agriculture rice sufficiency index show that Biliran has 238 percent
share of the region's rice supply, followed by Leyte province at 171
percent, and third, Southern Leyte with 102 percent share. Other
provinces such as
Eastern Samar, Samar, and
Northern Samar are positioned in the lowest three share based on the
index with only 55.3%, 50.8%, and 37.6% respectively.
Very recently the
alleged rice shortage created a panic buying effect among consumers
that even prompted the national government conduct raids among giant
rice warehouses in the national capital region reportedly due to
hoarding which they (hoarders) intends to sell later at a blotted
price.
In a related story,
Robert Hernandez, National President of the Alyansa Ng Industriyang
Bigas (ANIB) disclosed that there is no actually rice crisis- but
price crisis. He said, the country has enough supply of rice, only
that these are commercial rice that are sold from P33 - P44 compared
to the NFA rice at P18.25 per kilo or from P1,400 - P2,000 per sack
depending on the variety and quality. What is in shortage now, he
said, is the cheap rice such as NFA that low income earners could
afford to buy on a daily basis.
