The National Food Authority (NFA) ordered on Tuesday a review of its rice import protocols after President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III exposed alleged excessive importation of the staple, with some of the surplus left rotting in warehouses.

This developed as the NFA scrapped the iron fortification program of its rice stocks and called for its investigation.

The audit of the rice import follows Aquino's revelation during his State-of-the-Nation Address (SoNA) Monday that rice imports in recent years were much more than what the country actually needed.

During the SoNA, Aquino cited 2004 when 117,000 metric tons was the actual supply shortfall, but imports ballooned to 900,000 metric tons.

In 2007, supply shortfall was only 589,000 tons but the NFA imported 1.83 million tons, Aquino said.

Because of the surplus of rice import, some of the stock rotted in grains warehouses.

Following this year's record purchases, excessive inventories of rice in NFA warehouses have prompted the NFA to ask state-owned Vietnam Southern Food Corp., a major supplier of the country's rice import requirement, to defer delivery of some of its rice exports to the Philippines by up to five months, newly appointed NFA Administrator Angelito Banayo told reporters.

“This is proof that our warehouses are filled to the rafters,” he said.

At the beginning of the month, the NFA's inventory was sufficient to cover 58 days of consumption, based on a daily requirement of 36,500 tons. The NFA is required only to have 30 days worth of inventory going into the lean production months from July to September.

According to Banayo, the audit will also look into the NFA's local purchases of paddy, intended to shore up domestic prices of the grain. The audit may be completed within 45 days, said Banayo, who declined to name prospective members of the team.

The NFA chief also said rice imports for next year are likely to fall significantly from this year's level.

Following the Food and Agriculture Organization's warning of a potential food shortage between 2016-2017, the country has set a goal for the country to become self-sufficient in rice within the medium term, he said.

“Whether we like it or not, we have to strive for self-sufficiency...Food isn't just an economic and political commodity, it is also a national security issue,” he added.

Wrong info
Reacting to Aquino’s SoNA, neophyte opposition Rep. Arthur Yap insists that the agency he used to head as secretary has fed the Chief Executive the wrong figures on alleged over-importation of rice.

This despite a Commission on Audit annual audit report that confirmed that the NFA indeed failed to dispose of huge shipment of rice from Thailand and Vietnam in 2008.

Yap, former secretary of the Department of Agriculture, said government did not overshoot importation of rice when he was still head of the agency.

The Arroyo government resorted to massive importation of the staple in a bid to address the rice shortage problem that hit the country for several years.

“There was no over importation during my watch,” the newly-elected Bohol lawmaker said.

In its 2008 audit report of the NFA, the Commission on Audit (CoA) said that some two million bags of imported rice stocks were stored for more than four months and remained in warehouses as of year-end, thus “decreasing the maximum benefits in disposing the same at a better selling price.”

CoA also chided the NFA for failing to exclude “broken rice” from Thailand and Vietnam importations, saying that at least 15 percent of the total volume shipped to the Philippines were damaged rice.

In the same year, government spent over P148 million for warehousing and demurrage fees that were incurred by NFA due to delay in documentation of the importations.

Yap claimed he did not have a direct hand in determining the volume of rice to be imported.

“That decision was collegial in nature, it is not dependent on one person alone,” he said.

Fortification stopped
Banayo, meanwhile, ordered a stop to the iron fortification program purportedly due to complaints by retailers that “consumers don’t want it.”

Asked for comment on this move, rice millers expressed surprise at the move since “iron-fortified rice is distinct from other NFA rice stocks since they cannot be re-bagged and sold by unscrupulous traders at a neat P200 profit for each 25-kilo bag.”

Long-time Philippine Confederation of Grains Association president Herculano “Joji” Co also asked that the program be continued since it has a positive impact on the nutrition campaign of the Aquino government.

Last June 2, Assistant Secretary Bernardita T. Flores of the National Nutrition Council (NNC) wrote then NFA Administrator Jessup Navarro to report the positive results of the iron fortification program.

In her letter, Flores lauded the NFA for complying with the provisions of the Biofortification Law, otherwise known as Republic Act No. 8976, since the rice distributed by the agency for the Food for School Program (FSP) has been a boon in the battle against malnutrition.

Majority of pupils in public elementary schools and millions of nursing mothers had been suffering from vitamin A deficiency for decades and this prompted Congress to enact a law that makes it mandatory for processors to boost the nutritive value of rice, flour, soy sauce, and even vinegar with vitamin A.

She urged Navarro to talk to rice millers and persuade them to comply with RA 8976.

Flores said that the National Nutrition Survey of the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) in 2008 showed anemia incidence dropped considerably compared to 2003.

She said it is highly possible that such reduction was due to the provision of iron fortified rice and its consumption by pupils. (With a report from Dow Jones)