The Department of Agriculture (DA) has warned of a grim future for the country’s rice farming sector unless the Rice Tariffication Law (RTL) is amended to restore stronger government control over rice importation and retail.
“I really feel that the RTL, as it is written today, will kill our rice industry. If it is not addressed, if it is not amended, it will kill the rice industry,” Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel said in a statement on Thursday.
The original version of the RTL, approved in 2018, liberalized the country’s rice sector and limited the National Food Authority’s (NFA) powers to keep the country’s national rice buffer stock for 15 days.
Under that law, the buffer stock was ensured by the government by buying solely from local sources to provide the staple food during emergencies, calamities or national food emergency declarations, as well as to bid out aging stocks.
The RTL mandates tariffs collected from imported rice of at least P10 billion to be directed to the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF), designed to help farmers modernize through mechanization, input subsidies and financial assistance.
The RTL was amended late last year to extend RCEF funding until 2031 and tripled its annual budget to P30 billion. However, the NFA is still restricted from importing rice to boost stock or directly sell the grain to the public.
Import ‘affecting local producers’
“Imported rice is creating a problem for local rice producers. It is eating market share, and that could force even local millers to close shop and just go into rice importation… What is important to me is the stability of the local market,” Tiu Laurel said.
He cited the department’s recent success in streamlining the importation of sugar and onions as a model that could be replicated for rice if enabled by an amended RTL. Such amendment proposes that rice imports can be limited to cover only the supply gap, plus an additional two to three months of buffer stock, or equivalent to roughly 750,000 to 1 million metric tons (MT) annually.
Based on the latest data from the Bureau of Plant Industry, as of July 10, 2025, the Philippines has imported a total of 2.3 million MT of rice, the bulk of which, or 1.76 million MT equivalent to 76.5 percent, came from Vietnam.
The DA reiterated that such policy shift needs backing for the proposed Rice Industry and Consumer Empowerment (RICE) Act to take effect. The Act aims to restore the NFA’s regulatory powers, as well as authorize the Agriculture department to restrict imports, particularly during the harvest season and allow the government to set a floor price for palay.
Tiu Laurel added that he plans to meet with other congressional leaders, including Senate President Francis Escudero and the chairpersons of the agriculture committees in both the Senate and the House, to rally support for amending the RTL.
H1 palay/corn harvests up
In a separate development, the DA secretary cited the latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showing higher palay and corn harvests in the first half of 2025, driven by stronger second-quarter output due to improved weather and sustained government support.
The DA quoted the latest PSA data showing palay production in the country for the first half of the year reached 9.08 million MT, up by 6.4 percent from 8.53 million MT in the same period last year. Total area planted to palay grew by 2.7 percent to 2.12 million hectares as farmers maximized increased rainfall in rainfed areas.
Meanwhile, the agency said that corn production saw a 5.2 percent year-on-year increase to 3.9 million MT in the first half of the year despite the narrower total area planted to corn at 1.049 million hectares, compared with 1.052 million hectares a year earlier.
‘Hope for a better year’
“Palay and corn production for the January–June semester gives us hope for a better year for agriculture despite the challenges we now face… Mother Nature permitting, and with the help of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and lawmakers, we are cautiously optimistic that we could post a record harvest this year,” Tiu Laurel further said.
The department is targeting palay production this year to reach a record high 20.46 million MT. Last year, the country only produced a total of 19.09 million MT of palay due to alternating El Niño-induced drought and La Niña-related flooding.
The previous record highest output for local palay was in 2023 when it reached 20.06 million MT.
