Philippines needs comprehensive long-term corn development program

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines urgently needs a comprehensive long-term corn development program to help meet the growing demand and reduce importation of the grain, according to feedmillers.

In a statement, the Philippine Association of Feed Millers Inc. (PAFMI) said having a national corn development program, which encompasses the whole value chain starting from the farm until the produce reaches the market and industrial users, will allow the country to reduce its dependence on imports.

Based on the latest 2022-2023 Corn Supply Outlook published by the National Corn Program, local feed corn sufficiency last year was only at about 57 percent.

This situation leaves feedmillers “with little option but to resort to importations.”

PAFMI, representing more than 30 feed milling companies in the country, said imported corn volumes have continued to rise over the last decade as local corn harvests are unable to keep up with demand.

Corn is an integral ingredient in the manufacture of feeds for the livestock and poultry industry.

PAFMI said the gap between imported and local corn needs to be “substantially trimmed to a single digit to insulate the country from the adverse effects of any tight global supply of grains, which ultimately impinges on the nation’s food security and leaves the country vulnerable to global supply imbalances.”

This year, the DA expects local corn produce for feeds to reach 7.56 million metric tons (MT), of which 6.35 million MT will go to animal feed mix.

PAFMI noted that even without any typhoons that could affect harvest, the farm production volumes are still not enough.

“A comprehensive long-term corn development program that takes into consideration the country’s growing appetite for livestock and poultry produce should provide an impetus to modernize corn farming and put in place much-needed harvest and post-harvest infrastructure,” it said.

To come up with a national corn development program, stakeholders composed of representative farmer groups, business groups, and the Department of Agriculture (DA) have agreed on several recommendations.

These  include an efficient and stable supply chain of industry inputs like seeds, fertilizer, and other inputs; production of quality corn in efficient production systems for food, feeds and industrial uses by empowered, enterprise-oriented farmers amidst climate change challenges;  efficient post-harvest systems for quality corn to reduce cost and losses; the development, improvement and promotion of efficient use systems of corn in appropriate scales of operation; and efficient marketing infrastructure and systems.

On the policy side, some of the recommendations include clustering and consolidation of corn farms to achieve economies of scale in production-postharvest industry linkages; pursuing science-/data-based policy decision making and data collection/analytics; improving the vertical integration of yellow corn producers to the livestock and poultry industry; and enhancing short-term corn availability to support value chains.

Meanwhile, PAFMI said it fully supports DA Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban’s plan to increase the yield per hectare of yellow corn by three percent a year as an immediate step towards increasing harvest volumes in the coming years.

Earlier, President Marcos signed Executive Order (EO) 10, which kept the corn tariff at five in- quota from 35 percent, and 15 percent out quota from 50 percent until year-end.

“The positive effect of lower tariffs on imported corn on pork and chicken prices has been a result of several commissioned studies by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA),” PAFMI said.

Corn-based feeds are the biggest cost component in poultry and livestock production, thus any radical deviations in the availability, affordability, and accessibility of corn in both the local and global markets have an unavoidable inflationary effect on the country’s food basket, the group said.