DA to limit rice imports

Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala said he would stick to his decision to import only 500,000 metric tons of rice for 2012 even as this year’s rice production has fallen below targets.

Farmers expect to harvest 16.68 million metric tons (MT) of rice in 2011, less than the 17.4-million MT targeted at the start of the year.

The Department of Agriculture said the destructive storms that hit the grains-producing regions in the second semester lowered national paddy yields.

But Alcala said the Philippines, which used to be the world’s largest rice importer, would definitely not purchase more than the 860,000 MT it had bought for 2011. “That is my ceiling,” he said.

For next year, Alcala said, he would stick to his earlier recommendation to buy about 500,000 MT.

If the rains did not drown the crops in Central Luzon in October—harvest time for the wet season—we wouldn’t need to import much rice, he said.

He said he even toyed with the idea of importing only 300,000 metric tons for 2012.

Agriculture Undersecretary Antonio Fleta said the government’s move to reduce rice imports had forced rice buyers and traders to buy the staple from Filipino farmers.

“They are seeing that the supply is coming from local farmers. And this encourages the farmers to plant more,” Fleta said.

“The rice traders are now competing with the NFA [National Food Authority] to buy rice,” he noted.

Alcala said the government would make the final decision by late November on how much rice to buy from abroad. The supply, most likely to come from Vietnam, would come in by July 2012.

Rice, the main staple of Filipinos, along with corn, accounts for half of the value of the nation’s agriculture. The DA wants the Philippines to produce enough rice by 2013 to allow it to stop buying from abroad.

In the last quarter of 2011, which saw two destructive typhoons, “Pedring” and “Quiel,” production forecasts based on standing crops pointed to a decrease of 8.8 percent from last year’s level of 6.5 million MT.

The Bureau of Agricultural Statistics said rice production during this period could total 5.93 million MT.

Alcala said he was optimistic some of the losses from the typhoons could be recovered under the DA’s Quick Turn Around (QTA) program and “ratooning” initiative. The harvest from these projects, however, would only be felt in the first quarter of 2012.

The QTA program encouraged farmers to plant rice immediately after the storms hit.

Ratooning, on the other hand, is a planting method where the rice stubbles or stalks are allowed to regenerate using fertilizer. Ratooned rice is ready for harvest after 45 days.

Alcala said the practice is widely used in rice exporting countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia, but is only beginning to be seen in Philippine fields.

Originally posted at 12:34 pm | Thursday, November 17, 2011