MANILA — The National Food Authority needs an additional P8 billion to secure more palay and meet its target 15-day rice buffer stock for the country, NFA Administrator Larry Lacson said Tuesday.

Lacson in a Palace briefing said that the NFA currently has a buffer of 358,000 metric tons or 7.16 million bags of rice, enough to last the country for 9.36 days.

“Mga P8 billion pa ang kailangan natin to fill up the 15-day buffer stock. Pero dahil flexible ang pricing natin, puwede nating maitaas/maibaba iyong presyo ng palay and we can buy more kung medyo mura ang palay,” Lacson said in a Palace briefing.

The official said this is on top of the P9 Billion earlier allocated to the NFA to purchase palay from farmers. Lacson says the NFA is looking to request additional funds to build up the country’s rice buffer stock, but says it is currently focused on unloading their existing stocks to generate more funds.

“That, we will do when the time comes. Pero ang iniisip ko kasi as the Administrator of the National Food Authority, if we can unload the existing stocks now, that will generate fund for us to buy more palay,” he said.

Meanwhile, the NFA said it is working to increase and repair its warehouses to add more space for palay amid existing problems of warehouse congestion. Lacson noted that 36 percent of NFA warehouses in high palay-producing regions are already full.

Despite these problems, the NFA administrator believes that a 15-day rice buffer stock is still achievable.

“To be honest, it’s a tall order pero I think it can be achieved basta’t na-manage nating mabuti at makalabas iyong ating mga stocks sa ating mga bodega,” he said.

He said LGUs need to take advantage of the declaration of a food security emergency to buy cheap rice from the NFA, which in turn will free up space in the agency's warehouses. This way, the NFA can buy even more palay from local farmers.