National Food Authority is increasing the number of its accredited rice outlets nationwide.
A statement from the NFA said this move intends to make affordable government rice more accessible to the consuming public.
NFA OIC Tomas Escarez directed all field offices to accredit additional rice retail outlets not only inside the market but even in remote barangays to make NFA rice readily available especially to the marginalized sector.
NFA rice is still being sold at P27 per kilogram for 25 percent ‘broken’, and P32 per kilogram for 15 percent ‘broken’.
To enable those who are interested to become an NFA accredited rice retail outlet, Escarez said that field offices were instructed to ease the requirements for accreditation. He said that interested applicants can be issued a temporary accreditation pending completion of inspection and submission of requirements so they can immediately sell NFA rice to the consuming public.
NFA currently has a total of 16,775 accredited rice outlets nationwide. Aside from the traditional rice outlets inside and outside the markets, NFA has also other non-traditional rice outlets such as the Bigasan sa Barangay, Bigaasan sa Parokya, and Barangay Food Terminal.
NFA also participates in the Diskwento Caravan in the different municipalities organized by the Department of Trade & Industry to bring affordable government rice closer to the public especially during this holiday season.
Escarez reported that the food agency has distributed a total of 21,405,835 bags of the good quality but low-priced NFA rice from January to November of this year through its accredited outlets across the country.
He said that the agency intends to open more non-traditional rice outlets to further widen its reach and to ensure that more low-income consumers would benefit from the government subsidized rice.
