PH to achieve rice selfsufficiency by 2020 – Piñol

President Duterte described as bleak the prospect of the Philippines to be rice sufficient because of shrinking agricultural lands justifying the need for rice imports.

But Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol is optimistic that the country will be rice sufficient

by 2020. In fact, Piñol said the country may even achieve record harvest this year.

The total rice output this year, Piñol said would be higher than the 19.26 million metric tons (MT) produced in 2017, which happens to be the highest production the country has recorded in a year.

“It was the highest paddy rice harvest in the history of the country and it brought the country's production for 93 percent of the total national annual requirements,” Piñol said.

Right now, the DA is only targeting a production of 95 to 96 percent of the total national rice requirements to become rice self-sufficient.

The remaining four to five percent of the supply, according to Piñol, will be imported to comply with the Philippine commitments to the World Trade Organization.

The latest data of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed the probable palay production for April to June 2018 based on standing crop as of 01 May 2018 is at 4.07 million MT.

While this is a decline of 1.8 percent from last year’s level of 4.15 million MT, it is slightly higher by 0.6 percent from April, 2018, round estimate of 4.05 million MT.

"The increments in palay production are foreseen in Isabela, Nueva Ecija, Laguna, Quezon and Mindoro Oriental. These may be attributed to sufficient water, lesser incidence of pests and diseases coupled with good weather condition during the cropping period," PSA said.

It was in April when Duterte first said the Philippines was unlikely to become self-sufficient in rice amid concerns of shrinking the rice farms.

He belittled Piñol’s rice sufficiency forecast as “just a story.”

“If you’d ask me, in the next how many years, we will just have to import rice. I do not believe that we can be ricesufficient. Yung sinabi ni Piñol na at the year’s end, storya man lang ‘yon (What Piñol said is just a story),” he said in one of the forums.

Duterte had earlier approved the government-to-government importation of 250,000 MT of rice from Vietnam and Thailand after the National Food Authority (NFA) claimed it already ran out of supply.

While NFA can procure palay from Filipino farmers, the agency claims it would be easier and cheaper to just buy from other countries. This, while claiming that farmers just wouldn't sell their palay to the government at 117 per kilo.

This importation was followed by another set of bidding, this time through a government-to-private scheme, where another 250,000 MT of rice was procured.

NFA also recently allowed the importation of 805,000 MT of rice under the Minimum Access Volume (MAV) scheme of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Available this week

The rice importations already arrived in some parts of Mindanao.

The initial shipment of the 250,000 metric tons (MT) of rice imported through the government to government bidding arrived on June 2 at the Surigao and Subic ports but was not immediately unloaded due to bad weather.

"The weather has caused tremendous delays," NFA said.

"[The delivery of subsidized rice in] Metro Manila and Central Luzon will be this week. Full distribution will be this week," NFA spokesman Rex Estoperez said in a text message.

On Monday, NFA already started distributing its 127 and 132 per kilogram rice through 188 accredited retailers in Agusan and Surigao, including the islands of Dinagat and Siargao, while it already unloaded 126,000 bags of rice from Vietnam in Tobaco, Albay.