THE AVERAGE farmgate price of palay, or unmilled rice, fell 1% week-on-week to P18.96 per kilogram in the second week of June, with prices up 5.9% year-on-year, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said.
The farmgate price is just below the P19 per kilo government buying price, the price at which National Food Authority acquires palay to maintain a buffer stock and when it intervenes in the market as a buyer of last resort.
In its weekly update on palay, rice, and corn prices, the PSA said the average wholesale price of well-milled rice rose 0.3% to P39.53 while the retail price rose 0.3% to P42.75.
The average wholesale price of regular-milled rice fell 0.4% to P35.85 while the retail price rose 0.2% to P38.52.
The farmgate price of yellow corn grain fell 0.6% to P12.64.
The average wholesale price of yellow corn grain rose 0.7% to P21.02 while the retail price rose 0.3% to P25.68.
The farmgate price of white corn grain fell 0.9% to P13.96.
The average wholesale and retail prices of white corn grain were flat at P17.38 and P27.50, respectively.
The PSA released two weeks’ worth of data in its latest report. In the first week of June, the average farmgate price of palay fell 0.1% to P19.15. Year-on-year, the price rose 6.9%. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave
