The Department of Agriculture (DA) disagreed with the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) projection that the Philippines may book record rice imports in 2025 until 2026.
The USDA projection has been “a little bit exaggerated” especially since local palay production has also been projected to hit a record 20.4 million metric tons (MMT) this year, DA spokesperson Arnel de Mesa told reporters in a briefing in Quezon City on Tuesday.
Earlier, the USDA reported that the Philippines is likely to hit record rice import volumes up to 5.5 MMT in 2026 from this year’s projected 5.4 MMT.
In 2024, the DA said that the country logged the highest recorded rice imports in the world, at 4.78 MMT.
“Last year, we imported close to 4.8 MMT simply because we lost 1 MMT of palay because of El Niño, La Niña and a series of typhoons. This year, barring any serious weather disturbances and since we don’t have El Niño and only a projection of La Niña for this coming wet season, they see a good, normal rainfall pattern,” De Mesa said.
He added that the country’s rice consumption is likely to remain at 122 kilograms per capita per year, making the USDA’s assumed Philippine rice imports for this year at 5.4 MMT “slightly high.”
However, the agency did not cite its own expectations for the country’s rice imports in 2025.
As of May 15, 2025, the latest available data from the Bureau of Plant Industry showed that 1.57 MMT of imported rice have arrived in the country, bulk of which or 1.15 MMT, equivalent to 73.2 percent of the total, came from Vietnam.
On the other hand, De Mesa said the sale of the P20 per kilogram subsidized rice also helped in pulling down the prices of other rice varieties in the market. However, he said that as of May 20, they still did not have the figures on price decreases that resulted from the presence of the subsidized rice in selected markets.
“We cannot say exactly but that P20 is big, a very significant decrease especially from the base of P29 and P33 to P35. So, definitely, this will have an impact on market prices,” De Mesa further said.
Based on the DA’s monitoring of public markets in the National Capital Region, local well-milled rice sold for P40 to P48 per kg on Monday, May 19, while regular milled rice went for P35 to P43 per kg.
Imported well-milled rice was selling for P41 to P48 per kg while the prices of imported regular milled rice ranged from P35 to P45 per kg.
Special-variety local rice was selling for P53 to P62 per kg while premium rice went for P44 to P60 per kg.
These varieties are priced based on regular market forces and are not subsidized.
