The country has a current inventory of 2.5 million metric tons of rice and it is good to last for 28 days, Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap said in reaction to reports that the prices of commercial rice varieties have increased.

Yap rejected suggestions that the country is in for another rice crisis, explaining that the recent upward price adjustments are anywhere from P5 to P10 per bag, which translates to only 10 centavos or 20 centavos per kilo.

“The situation is that we have actually ended the main harvest. This is the reason why traders and retailers are experiencing constricted supply deliveries," he said.

Even if the prices rise from P40 to P50 per bag, the actual retail price would still be affordable as it translates only to an increase of 80 centavos to a peso per kilo.

This being the case, Yap said, the movement in prices is still rational and logical and should not push people to start panic buying.

"We are not alarmed by that price movement," he said.

The agriculture chief insisted that the harvest would come late next month for the dry crop and then March and April for the summer crop.

The National Food Authority (NFA) has about a million metric tons of rice in its warehouses, he said, and another million metric tons in households nationwide, an indication that the country has enough of the staple.

Retailers and millers also have 500,000 MT of rice.

Yap said the farm gate price of palay is now P16 per kilo, which is a good price for farmers. This price translates to P32 per kilo for milled rice in the market.  Put in the R2 profit for retailers per kilo and the price ranges from P34 to P36.

The DA secretary explained he would be more worried if the farmgate price of palay is very low while the retail price is rising skyward. "That will be dangerous," Yap said.

Should such scenario happens, the NFA will move in and provide larger volumes of the grain to discipline the market, Yap said.

The NFA is mandated by its charter to buy 10 percent of the total national rice output each year. It has not succeeded in fulfilling that mandate since it was established in 1972.