More rice imports seen after typhoon damage

The Philippines could be forced to import more rice after Typhoon Koppu (local name: Lando) hit major grain producing regions over the weekend causing “significant” losses, a senior agriculture official said yesterday.

Official preliminary estimates on losses stood at around 412,000 tonnes of paddy rice, accounting for about 5 percent of the government’s forecast fourth quarter harvest of 7.95 million tonnes. A final figure is expected in around a week.

“If you ask me if we need to import more, I would say ‘yes’, but up to what volume and when, I don’t know,” Edilberto de Luna, Department of Agriculture assistant secretary for field operations, told Reuters.

“This is a significant volume because the typhoon hit our major rice-producing provinces.”

Powerful typhoon Koppu ploughed into the northeastern Philippines before dawn on Sunday destroying homes and displacing thousands of people.

The Southeast Asian country remains one of the world’s biggest buyers of rice, with imports approved for delivery this year reaching nearly 1.8 million tonnes, mainly from Vietnam and some from Thailand, two of the world’s top suppliers.

Prior to the typhoon, the country’s National Food Authority Council had already been assessing the need to import 1 million tonnes of rice next year on top of 500,000 tonnes approved for the first quarter.

The typhoon losses add to those from a dry spell induced by the El Niño weather phenomenon, forecast to intensify this quarter and extend until the second quarter of 2016.

Rice output in the third quarter was likely slightly lower than initially projected due to the dry spell, pest attack and typhoons, while stocks had shrunk steadily for four straight months starting May.

But De Luna said that rains brought by Koppu had filled up water-starved dams, which should allow rice farmers to begin planting soon without worrying too much about water access.

Total crop losses from the typhoon, including those for rice, corn and other crops, were initially valued at 6.3 billion pesos ($137 million), he said.

Corn losses were “minimal” at about 5,000 tonnes because harvesting was finished before Koppu’s arrival, De Luna added.

Earlier, it was reported that the country may have already seen the need to intensify its efforts to prevent the impact of a stronger, prolonged El Niño as the importation of additional 1 million metric tons (MT) of rice for next year’s supply is now in the works.

Socioeconomic planning secretary Arsenio Balisacan said the government will be importing 1 million MT of rice on top of the 500,000 MT that has already been secured for next year.

He also said that while the move is still subject to several approvals, the bidding should happen within the year so that the additional rice imports will arrive in the country by next year.

“The decision will have to be made within the year by the NFA [National Food Authority] council after reassessing the [El Niño] situation later this year. But the importation, if approved, will be done in the first half of 2016,” Balisacan said in a text message.

“The NFA council will make the decision and the President [Benigno Aquino III] will approve it,” he further said.

Chaired by NEDA, inter-agency Food Security Committee (FSC) is the one that gives NFA the authority to proceed with rice importation. FSC earlier said “there is no better option than being prepared” against impacts of El Niño.

El Niño is predicted to worsen beginning October this and will last until May, 2016.

Balisacan, who is also the director general of NEDA, already said before that the Philippines is still looking to import more rice as part of the preparations for what could be the worst El Niño to hit the country.

“We learned quite a lot from the previous El Niño phenomena. We have decided to import more for this year. We are putting a system that will allow us to monitor the rice situation more closely,” Balisacan said in a previous interview. (Reuters)