The Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) has flagged supposed discrepancies in official data on rice stocks and output released recently by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and urged these be reviewed.
The group urged the PSA to review its data gathering methodologies and synchronize them with information at the Department of Agriculture to avoid confusion in determining rice stock levels and output.
Based on the PSA’s latest inventory report, the FFF said the country’s rice stocks total 1.64 million metric tons as at 1 April 2024, sufficient for only 44 days of consumption based on daily usage of 37,500 MT.
According to the FFF, stock levels derived from 1 January starting inventories and actual rice output and documented import arrivals in the first quarter show that 1 April stocks should be around 2.46 million MT and enough for 66 days of consumption.
“The discrepancy of about 800,000 MT equivalent to about 22 days supply is very significant. If the PSA data are correct, it means that our palay output has been overstated all along. They also imply that our rice supply will tighten in the coming months, especially since El Niño’s impact on the second quarter harvest is expected to be more serious,” said Raul Montemayor, FFF national manager.
Montermayor said the PSA also recently released data showing palay output in the first quarter this year declining 2 percent, presumably due to the effect of the El Niño weather disturbance as yields also dropped an average 1.8 percent even as harvest areas shrunk by only 0.13 percent.
“Inexplicably however, rainfed areas appear to have been less affected than irrigated farms despite the lack of rain. The percentage reduction in output and yield in irrigated areas was about double that in areas dependent on rainfall,” Montemayor said.
The FFF also said it flagged even larger discrepancies in the PSA’s published data last year, noting that palay output in 2022 may have been overestimated nearly 25 percent or 5 million MT if the agency’s ending inventory estimate for the year was assumed to be correct.
