The National Food Authority (NFA) in Bohol is now left without even a single sack of rice in its warehouse.
Joel Lim, spokesperson of NFA-Bohol provincial office, said it has been since the first week of June that they ran out of supply.
As of February, NFA-Bohol had a standby supply of 20,000 sacks of rice and last number of sacks had been distributed by first week of this month, leaving them with zero supply as of now.
Lim said NFA-Bohol is still waiting for the shipment from the Cebu depot of NFA-regional office.
He added that the cargo vessel carrying the supply of rice imported from Vietnam had just arrived yesterday.
The vessel now docked at the Cebu International Port Around is carrying 200,000 sacks of rice.
NFA-Bohol expected to be allocated around 20,000 to 30,000 sacks of rice from the latest shipment as the usual allocation for Bohol from NFA-7.
Lim also said NFA-Bohol still prioritizes the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), the Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, and local government units (LGUs) in the distribution for standby stock in times of calamities.
As of the arrival of the last batch of shipment in the last part of February, NFA-Bohol resumed distribution of stock to accredited market outlets, making quality rice at low price available to the public again.
At that time, NFA-Bohol Manager Peng Evasco announced that the boat load shipment of 32,000 bags had already arrived from the NFA depot in Cebu and so they were able to resume distribution of stock to accredited market outlets starting February 26.
NFA-Bohol reserved a certain volume for emergency in times of calamities, considering that the next expected shipment would still be in in June or July.
The usual distribution of NFA rice to accredited retailers had been temporarily affected the NFA council took time in deciding on the proposed importation of 250,000 metric tons of rice.
The NFA Council at that time was weighing on what mode of importation to adopt- -whether it has to be government to government or government to private mode.
With the limited stock of rice, NFA had decided in February to resume the distribution in response to the clamor of stakeholders.
NFA, then, followed a marketing plan where they had a target as to the number of bags to be distributed to all the accredited retailers monthly.
NFA-Bohol opted to distribute 10,000 bags in the month of February then another 10,000 bags the following months.
The volume of rice being distributed had to depend on the season. During the harvest season, NFA distributes lesser supply. During the lean months, NFA would increase the stock available in the market through the accredited retailers.
In the schedule set as of February, the number of bags distributed to retailers ranged from 5-1,000 bags a day.
While NFA-Bohol was still capable of providing higher allocation of supply to the market in February, they have estimate the allocation for the month of March and would lie low during harvest season.