The country’s production of milled grains as rice and corn this year should prove only minimally lower than target, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) said on Tuesday.
In a report dated 25 September this year, the reduced output are the combined impact of the series of weather disturbances generated by typhoons Dodong, Egay and Falcon, the onset of El Nino and the army worm disease in corn and rice fields in some parts of the country.
Thus, the USDA revised the forecast rice production for market year beginning July 2023 to July 2024 to only 12.55 million metric tons (MT), down 0.4 percent from 12.6 million MT originally.
As a result, the Philippines is seen importing no more than 3.5 million MT of rice, down 7.9 percent from an earlier forecast of 3.8 million MT.
The USDA said the cut in imported rice shipments is influenced by the high global price of the staple and by the uncertainty generated by the imposition of price ceilings that forced traders to pause.
Still, the USDA said the authorities need to keep rice reserves steady at 16.4 million MT.
As for corn production, the USDA recalculated and came up with a forecast for market year 2022-2023 of 8.2 million MT, down 2.4 percent from the original 8.4 million MT.
As a result, Philippine corn imports is now expected to reach 1 million MT or a 25 percent surge from the original 800,000 MT.
The corn imports are also in anticipation of this year’s expiration of lower tariff rate for corn.
Domestic demand for corn is forecast at 9.3 million MT.Raul Montemayor, national manager at the Federation of Free Farmers, noted the forecast 3.5 million MT of rice imports is “over and above” the annual rice supply deficit and that fewer rice imports should not have a significant impact on local supply.
