The country’s rice output this year could rise by 1.6 percent to a record high of nearly 13 million metric tons (MMT) on the back of favorable weather conditions and high farm-gate prices, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
In its biannual food outlook report, the FAO projected that total Philippine milled-rice production in 2018 would reach 12.9 MMT, 200,000 MT more than the 12.7 MMT recorded output in 2017.
“Asia is expected to drive the global production expansion of 2018, harvesting a record 461.9 million tons, up 1.2 percent from 2017,” the FAO said in the report published recently.
“Current prospects also point to Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar and Thailand producing more in 2018, but the outlook is less buoyant elsewhere in Asia,” it added.
Despite the record-high harvest, Manila’s rice imports this year would expand by half to 1.5 MMT, from 1 MMT a year ago, as the government seeks to beef up the National Food Authority’s (NFA) depleting stockpile and keep retail prices of the staple within affordable level.
“Asian import demand looks set to remain strong in 2018, amid efforts by countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines to shore up reserves and contain increases in local prices,” the FAO said.
The hike in the country’s rice imports, along with additional volumes purchased by Bangladesh and Indonesia abroad, would sustain the upward trend of the staple’s global prices amid currency depreciation in various exporting countries.
“The upward trajectory exhibited by international rice prices since late-2016 held during the first half of 2018, as reflected by the FAO All Rice Price Index [2002–2004=100] rising by another 6 percent since December, to reach 232 points in June 2018. At this level, the index stood at its highest since November 2014, and 11 percent above its value a year earlier,” the FAO said.
“The gains have been demand-driven, coming in the aftermath of large purchases by Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines, although in the case of Vietnam, increases tended to be accentuated by tighter availabilities following a shift away from cultivation of lower-grade Indica varieties in the country,” the FAO added.
The FAO projected that the Philippines’s total year-end rice inventory this year would settle at 2.4 MMT, 100,000 MT higher than the 2.3 MMT recorded stocks last year.
The country’s total rice consumption for 2017 and 2018 is forecasted to increase by 2.22 percent to 13.8 MMT, from 13.5 MMT recorded demand in 2016 and 2017, according to the FAO. This indicates that a Filipino would eat 115.2 kilograms of rice in 2017 and 2018, which is 700 grams more than the 114.5 per kilogram per-capita consumption in 2016 and 2017.
In April Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said the country’s unmilled rice or palay production could rise by nearly 3.11 percent to a record high of nearly 20 MMT on the back of higher yield and better farm-gate prices.
“This year rice production is expected to grow by about 600,000 metric tons, stimulated mainly by good palay-buying prices, favorable climate and the increase in the adoption of good quality and hybrid seeds by farmers,” Piñol said.
Rice output last year grew by 9.3 percent to 19.28 MMT, from 17.63 MMT recorded in 2016, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). The 9.3-percent increase in palay output last year allowed the country to reach a 96-percent self-sufficiency in rice, according to the DA.
“Last year the country posted its highest rice harvest in history at 19.28 million metric tons, which reduced the country’s dependence on imported rice from over 2 million metric tons in 2010 to only about 600,000 to 800,000 metric tons this year,” Piñol said.
Image credits: Laila Austria