DA: Rice supply enough until March harvest season

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture said that the country’s rice supply will remain sufficient until the next harvest season in March, adding that it is expecting almost half a million metric tons of imports by early January.

DA Undersecretary Roger Navarro said in a statement on Wednesday that the combined volume of imported rice and farmers’ harvests in recent months will be enough to meet the population's demands of the household staple until the next harvest season.

Navarro said that nearly 500,000 metric tons of rice imported by the private sector will arrive by December and early February.

“We received reports that around 100,000 tons of imported rice has already arrived in the country. This is part of the 495,000 metric tons committed by import permit holders to Secretary Tiu Laurel,” Navarro said.

Imported rice from Taiwan and India are also expected to arrive within the last week of December and early January. Specifically, about 75,000 metric tons will arrive from India while at least 20,000 bags of rice donated by Taiwan were delivered before December 25. 

“The 75,000 metric tons due in the coming weeks is part of the 295,000 metric tons of rice India has allocated to the Philippines,” Navarro said.

India, the world’s largest rice exporter, previously announced a ban on the overseas shipment of non-basmati white rice last July to stabilize domestic supply and prices. However, India has lifted the moratorium for seven countries, including the Philippines, which stands to get over 28% of the export allocation.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. imposed a price ceiling in September on regular and well-milled varieties of rice to temper the soaring prices of the household staple. 

Rice prices continued to soar in the same month, however, with the Philippines Statistics Authority recording a whopping rice inflation of 17.9% (year-on-year), the highest in 14 years.