VIGAN CITY -- National Food Authority (NFA) Administrator Jessup P. Navarro has announced that NFA's rice distribution in the first quarter helps keep the price of rice stable nationwide. Navarro said the NFA's rice distribution gave consumers ready access to the staple and this dispelled public apprehension of a rice price spiral due to El Nino's effects on the country's palay production.

 For the first quarter of this year, the NFA has distributed a total of 8.9 million bags of rice equivalent to 76 percent of the 11 million bags targeted for the period.

Rice sales in January reached 3.1 million bags, 3 million bags in February and 2.4 million bags in March. Presently, NFA’s daily rice sales averages 162,900 bags.

For the firs quarter, retail price of regular milled rice (RMR) increased only by P.43 per kg from P30.83 on the fourth week of January to P31.26 per kg for the fourth week of March. The increase in the retail price of well-milled rice (WMR) is even much lower at P.29 per kg during this period at P34.58 per kg at the end of March as against P34.28 per kg in January.

Meanwhile, NFA rice is being sold at the price of P25 for the 25 percent brokens and P30 and P35 per kg for the 15 percent and 5 percent brokens respectively.