The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reduced its projections for the Philippines’ milled rice and corn production for the year due to the effects of recent typhoons as well as of El Niño and the continued presence of fall armyworm.
The USDA in a report released on September 25 revised its forecast for the Philippines’ rice production for market year 2023-2024 or from July 2023 until July 2024, to 12.55 million metric tons (MT), down by 0.4 percent from the original 12.6 million MT forecast.
The agency also said the Philippines is now expected to import as much as 3.5 million MT rice, down by 7.9 percent from the previous forecast of 3.8 million MT due to the high international prices as well as the uncertainty over the imposition of the retail price ceiling which forces traders to adopt a “wait-and-see attitude.”
The USDA, however, said the country’s demand and required reserves for the period remain at 16.4 million MT.
The USDA also revised its forecast for the Philippines’ corn production for market year 2022-2023 to 8.2 million MT, down by 2.4 percent from the original 8.4 million MT forecast.
Because of lower production, Philippine corn imports for the period is now expected to reach 1 million MT, 25 percent higher than the original forecast of 800,000 MT.
The report said the higher corn imports is due to the anticipated shortfall in local production and feed importers’ efforts to try to import ahead of this year’s expiration of lower tariff rates on the commodity.
The USDA retained its projected total demand for corn at 9.3 million MT.
Damage to the agriculture sector of tropical cyclones Egay and Falcon amounted to P12 billion, according to data from the Philippine Department of Agriculture’s Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Operations Center as of September 15.
The DA attached agency said total cost of damage is equivalent to 279,289 MT of goods tended by 437,032 farmers and fisherfolk in 250,174 hectares (ha) of affected areas.
The monitoring captured data from the Cordillera Administrative Region, Ilocos, Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, Mimaropa, Western Visayas, Zamboanga Peninsula, Soccsksargen and Caraga.
Bulk of the recorded damage is from rice at P3.08 billion which affected 132,785 ha of areas equivalent to 69,748 MT of volume loss, followed by corn at P2.37 billion equivalent to 90,115 ha of areas and volume loss of 126,757 MT.
Raul Montemayor, Federation of Free Farmers national manager, said in a statement the USDA’s projections are “very possible” as international prices will likely remain high due to the global effects of the ongoing El Niño.
Montemayor said the projected volume of 3.5 million MT rice imports is still “over and above” the country’s annual rice supply deficit, noting the expected decline in imports “will not have a significant impact on local supply.”
