Philippine paddy output this year may decline by 2.5 percent to 18.8 million metric tons, from a record high of 19.28 MMT last year, after Typhoon Ompong (international code name Mangkhut) destroyed rice crops in Northern Luzon farms.
Prior to Ompong’s onslaught, Agriculture Assistant Secretary Andrew B. Villacorta said the Department of Agriculture (DA) had projected that unmilled rice production in the second semester would reach 10.8 MMT.
However, based on the initial damage reports collated by the DA, around 600,000 metric tons (MT) of palay have been destroyed by the typhoon, according to Villacorta.
“That means we are only expecting about 10.2 [million metric tons] this second semester if there won’t be another typhoon,” he said in an interview with DWIZ over the weekend.
“So, it’s unlikely that we will hit our target production of 19.4 million metric tons [for the year]. We are expecting about 18.8 million metric tons or even lower [this year],”
Villacorta added.
The DA official also said local corn production for 2018 may fall below the DA’s target of 7.7 MMT as Ompong wiped out some 260,000 MT of corn in Northern Luzon.
Corn production last year reached an all-time high of 7.914 MMT, 9.64 percent higher than the 7.218 MMT recorded in 2016.
“We expect corn production in the second semester to reach 3.5 million metric tons,” Villacorta said.
He said the DA may allow more imports to meet the demand of local feed millers and the livestock sector for corn.
“In fact, [Agriculture] Secretary [Emmanuel F. Piñol] has approved the importation of about 200,000 metric tons requested [by feed millers] before Typhoon Ompong. There could be an additional request from feed millers, perhaps another 200,000 metric tons,” he said.
Villacorta also said Piñol, who now chairs the National Food Authority Council (NFAC), wants the NFA to have a rice inventory of about 750,000 MT by the end of the year.
Piñol earlier told the BusinessMirror that the Philippines’s rice imports could exceed the 250,000 MT that the NFA has been allowed to ship into the country by November.
“We can expect more imports [this year]. The instruction of the President is to fill the warehouses [of the NFA],” Piñol said.
“The President has given me the leeway to make decisions, especially after the onslaught of Typhoon Ompong. We will have to make sure provinces affected by the typhoon would have enough rice for the next four months,” he added.
Northern Luzon farmers have incurred production losses amounting to about P16.76 billion due to the typhoon.