DA secretary ensures short-, long-term food security
THE Department of Agriculture (DA), under the leadership of Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr., had succeeded in securing the country’s rice supply and set in motion the modernization of the Philippine agriculture sector.
These were made in response to the marching order of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. to make the Philippines attain food security
This meant that the country’s rice supply would be sufficient through the first half of the year, with recent imports and the upcoming harvest that peaked in March and April.
Laurel assured the public of a stable price of rice until June in spite of El Nino.
“We have enough rice supply. So, prices should remain stable through the first half of the year. Our priority now is market stability,” Laurel said.
When it comes to local production, the DA reported that palay (unmilled rice) production in 2023 reached 20.06 million metric tons (MT) — the highest harvest ever in the country.
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) latest data, last year’s palay output was 1.5-percent higher than the 2022 volume of 19.76 million MT.
“Our goal is to push that rice harvest volume further, but that could be a challenge this year because of the water shortage we expect due to El Niño,” Laurel said.
The recorded palay harvest translated to 13.2 million MT of rice, an amount that allowed the country to reduce rice import volume to 3.5 million MT from 3.8 million MT in 2022.
Earlier, the DA noted that rice consumption was estimated at 13.5 million MT, but a required 50-day buffer meant the country needed an additional 1.85 million MT of rice supply.
Hence, President Marcos ordered the DA to modernize agriculture to increase food production, particularly palay, to ensure food security and increase farmers’ income.
The latest PSA data also showed that the agricul
ture and fisheries sectors remained resilient despite challenges faced in 2023, posting a 0.7-percent growth in terms of production value.
When it came to supplementing the country’s rice production, the Philippines signed a 5-year rice supply deal with Vietnam, which ensured a source of 1.5 million to 2.0 million MT of rice a year.
Meanwhile, India had committed to provide additional supply despite the import ban on non-basmati rice.
In December 2023 and January 2024, a total of 750,000 MT of imported rice arrived in the country.
“What we need to guard against now are profiteers, who may attempt to exploit the situation by using El Niño as an excuse to hoard rice supply to push local prices to unreasonably high levels,” Laurel said.
Setting modernization in motion
In modernizing the country’s agriculture sector, Laurel presented to President Marcos in January the 3-year plan to increase agricultural productivity, lower food cost, ensure food security and develop the agri-fishery industry.
The plan was in response to President Marcos emphasizing the need to improve the agriculture sector, including aquaculture.
“Basically, our three-year plan is to invest in postharvest facilities and to have more recovery for our products and, hopefully, to partly lower the cost of rice and corn,” Laurel said.
“Besides that, we have a big digitalization move in order to get more accurate production data for our production. As you know, we need real production data in order to be able to manage the food supply of the country effectively,” he added.
Laurel said the DA was eyeing the construction of cold storage facilities with 5,000 pallet positions for high-value crops, including vegetables, to address the oversupply of agricultural products in the country.
He said extending the shelf life of vegetables by putting them into cold storage chains was seen as an “immediate action” to solve overproduction, which he stressed was a “result of poor planning and [coordination] with the market.”
He noted that around P1 billion was be allotted for the establishment of four cold storage facilities in Luzon.
“If we try to solve the problem as soon as possible, assuming 2025, I need an additional P5 billion to address the vegetable cold storage issue of the whole nation,” Laurel said.
He also said an allotment of P93 billion is needed for the construction of postharvest facilities in the next 3 years.
“(For the) postharvest facility alone, we need P93 billion in the next 3 years in order to save P10.7 billion a year on wasted rice and corn, because we’re losing about 12.7 to 15 percent of our rice production due to a lack of postharvest facility. So, for the postharvest facilities for rice and corn,
Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. presented to President Marcos in January the three-year plan to increase agricultural productivity, lower food cost, ensure food security and develop the AGRI-fiSHERY INDUSTRY.
we need P93 billion,” Laurel said.
The DA has established around 268 cold chain facilities nationwide as of November last year.
By June 2028, the DA targeted to complete an additional 47 cold chain facilities.
Laurel said irrigation of 1.2 million hectares of farm lands, planted mainly with rice, would
require P1.2 trillion in capital spending.
“We [really need] to fund these projects. But, we must build bigger. We have three designs — small, medium and large, not mini,” he said.
Laurel said integrated rice mill and warehouse complexes must be built, which would cost around P90 billion over several years. This would reduce an estimated 15 percent in losses in rice due to the lack of postharvest facilities.
Such establishments would save around P10.7 billion worth of rice or an additional 23 days of rice inventory, which was equivalent to around 10 percent of rice imports based on last year’s figures.