The Philippine Statistics Authority reported that the rice inventory of the Philippines decreased by 12.8 percent.
Mariz Umali reported on “24 Oras” on Thursday that the rice supply in the country as of January 1, 2021, is only at 2.33 million metric tons.
Meanwhile, rice supply in the commercial warehouse also declined by 27.5 percent, or equivalent to 689,000 metric tons.
The rice stock of the National Food Authority decreased by 32.8 percent or more than 352,000 metric tons.
According to the Philippine Integrated Rice Program of the Department of Agriculture, the low rice supply is due to the series of strong typhoons during the last quarter of 2020.
“Napakalaki noon kasi inabot ka ng baha, inabot ng bagyo, talagang malaki ‘yong mawawala sa’tin. Sunod-sunod pa. ‘Yong iba na-harvest nga ‘yong palay, hindi mo naman ma-dry, masisira ‘yong palay din,” Philippine Integrated Rice Program director Dionisio Alvindia said.
Despite this, the DA said the rice supply in the Philippines is still adequate.
“Nagsa-start na tayo mag-harvest niyong February, March kaya itong first quarter, hindi masyadong malaki ang epekto niyan,” Alvindia said.
In November 2020, DA Secretary William Dar said the Philippines is expected to import more rice in 2021 to compensate for the supplies damaged by the typhoons in agriculture.
Rice supply in Philippines down by 12.8 percent – PSA
Dar said DA is aiming to increase the country’s rice sufficiency to 93%. However, with the typhoons’ damage to agriculture, he said it could decrease to 90% or 80%.
“If we’re able to meet that target, then we only have to import 7% of our total rice consumption. With the typhoon damages now, that could go down to bring us back to almost 89% to 90%,” he said.
“We have yet to now bring in 10% of our total rice consumption,” he added.
The DA chief noted that it is “a given” to import rice if the Philippines could not produce its total consumption.
“When you are only able to produce 90% percent of your requirement sa rice, then, you always have to import the rest of that from other countries… Yes, that’s a given,” he said.
The total cost of damage is P1.93 billion for the rice sector alone, affecting 68,374 hectares of land with a volume of production loss at 120,015 metric tons.