The National Food Authority (NFA) believes it can breach its palay buying target of 2.1-million bags for the palagad, or main harvest, in April.

For the entire year, NFA has set its aggregate procurement goal at 11.6 million bags, which translates to 5.8 million bags of milled rice.

Under its charter, the NFA was mandated to buy 10 percent of the total annual output of rice but the agency has not been able to achieve this.

The mandated procurement target actually represents the traditional projected 10 percent palay deficit.

However, NFA administrator Jessup P. Navarro said that for the first three weeks of the year, the agency only bought 249,905 bags, or 46 percent of the January target of 537,500 bags.

Navarro said farmers are just starting to harvest grain and the procurement would increase as farmers intensify their work.

He stressed that unlike last year, when the main harvest was extended, the typhoons that hit the country in the last quarter battered palay producing regions.

“Through the agency’s buying operations we were able to help farmers who recovered and were able to plant and harvest their palay early,” said Navarro.