The US Department of Agriculture has lowered its projection for the amount of rice the Philippines will import this year but still expects the country to buy a higher volume of soybean meal.
From an estimated import volume in March of 4.1 million metric tons of rice, the USDA now projects the amount of the national food staple the country will import this year to match the 3.9 million metric tons purchased from abroad last year.
The revised USDA estimate came after the Philippine Statistics Authority projected palay production to increase by 1.1 percent year-on-year to 4.83 million metric tons for the first quarter due to drier weather. Last year, the country posted a record 20.8 million metric ton palay harvest.
Meantime, the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service in Manila expects soybean meal imports of the Philippines to increase by 4 percent to 3.2 million metric tons due to growing feed demand for livestock, poultry and aquaculture. Livestock production is forecast to rise by 3 percent.
FAS Manila said as part of the increase in soybean meal import is the expected shortfall in copra output by 15 percent as copra meal production will likely drop 16 percent on account of El Nino’s impact on coconut supply. Lower copra production is expected to result in a decline in coconut oil exports to 900,000 metric tons.
Palm oil imports is projected to increase 5 percent to 940,000 metric tons.
