Rice, cooking oil prices increase in early April

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported price hikes for several commodities like rice and cooking oil in the early days of April. The PSA said the average retail price of a kilogram of regular milled rice increased to ₱51.39 between April 1 and 5, from the previous month’s prices of ₱51.21 and ₱51.14.

The average price for a fresh pork kasim also rose to ₱336.42 per kilogram in early April, higher than its previous average retail prices of ₱333.64 and ₱331.80.

A kilogram of Hawaiian ginger also swelled during the period at ₱130.39 per kilogram from the previous prices of ₱121.62 and ₱119.31.

Cooking oil also noted a significant increase, incurring an average retail price of ₱156.78 per liter during the period, up from ₱154.75 and ₱154.96 in March.

On the other hand, the price of a kilogram of tomato decreased to ₱71.80 during the first phase of April 2024, from ₱80.40 and ₱88.55.

A kilogram of galunggong was also lower during the period at ₱204.05 compared to ₱207.45 and ₱213.70 recorded previously, while mango carabao had an average retail price of ₱157.62 per kilogram, lower than the ₱166.03 and ₱168.13 recorded in March.

Palay output seen to increase

Meanwhile, the average farmgate price of palay also registered year-onyear increase of 32 percent in March at ₱24.52 per kilogram, from ₱18.57 in the same month last year.

This comes after rice inflation hit 24.4 percent during the month from 23.7 percent — almost toppling the comparable high record of 24.6 percent readout in February 2009.

PSA Undersecretary Claire Dennis S. Mapa had earlier said some rice farmlands reported damage in their irrigation systems, leading to low rice production but assured some farms to have better production.

Based on the PSA data, palay production is seen to increase to 4.82 million metric tons between January and March or by 0.8 percent from the output of 4.78 million metric tons in the same period last year.

However, the area planted for rice may decrease by 0.1 percent to 1.17 million hectares, while yield per hectare may improve by one percent to 4.10 metric tons from 4.06 metric tons recorded last year.

The PSA said about 677.34 thousand hectares or 57.7 percent of 1.17 million hectares updated harvest area of standing crop have been harvested as of March, translating to palay output of 2.74 million metric tons.

Of the 497.52 thousand hectares that remained to be harvested, 8.8 percent are at the reproductive stage and 91.2 percent at the maturing stage.