Rice imports to arrive in 2 weeks

The government expects the additional 250,000 metric tons of imported rice – to be used as buffer stock in anticipation of El Niño – to arrive within the next two weeks.

Presidential Adviser on Agriculture Modernization Angelito Sarmiento said the rice shipments, the bulk of which will be sourced from Vietnam and Thailand, will have to come earlier than the peak harvest season for palay which is in October.

"As far as I know, the entire volume has already been contracted by government since there was an order last week by Executive Secretary Alberto Romulo to complete the negotiations," Sarmiento said.

Malacañang reportedly wants to time the arrival of imported rice this month or weeks ahead of the wet season harvest in the middle of October so as not to unnecessarily dampen local palay prices.

The bulk of palay production or 40 to 50 percent of total palay production is normally harvested from October to December. But signs of El Niño, a warm weather phenomenon which is expected to hit the country this month and well into the next semester of 2003, is already evident in major rice-producing regions which have been experiencing scant rainfall, causing delays in planting. Thus, agriculture experts said the bulk of the palay harvest will be carried over to the first quarter of 2003.

The DA originally targeted palay production this year to hit 13.5 million metric tons (MT) but because El Niño was anticipated, this was scaled down to 13.2 million MT and further down to 13 million MT.

Unreleased figures by the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS) show that the impact of El Niño could be more far-reaching as it projected palay production to hit a low 12.7 million MT.

Rice supply has been tight as a result, and rice importation was necessary to meet the national daily consumption of 25,700 MT. Originally, rice to be imported was set at only 390,000 MT but since this was inadequate, it was later raised thrice by 250,000 MT to reach a total of 1.14 million MT.

The Philippines imports rice from India, Vietnam, Pakistan and Thailand. Of these four countries, India has so far supplied the biggest volume with 590,000 MT followed by Vietnam with 164,000 MT.

The importation of rice has angered farmers’ groups which insist there is no need to import the commodity, adding it will depress prices and hurt poor farmers who will be forced to sell their produce to traders at below farm-gate prices.

The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said the average farmgate price of palay range from P8 to P8.50 per kilo, but with the imports, this will drop to P5 to P6 per kilo which is even lower than the average production cost of more than P7 per kilo.