More rice imports next year as El Niño lingers

MANILA, Philippines - The government plans to import more rice in the first half of 2016 due to the adverse effects of the prolonged dry spell in some rice-producing provinces.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said yesterday preparations are being made to ensure the country has enough rice buffer to cushion the impact of the El Niño phenomenon which is expected to last until next year.

Balisacan is part of the National Food Authority’s council, the only agency allowed by law to bring in rice shipments from abroad.

 “This early, we are prepositioning our level of imports. We already decided to import more rice this year and we have already provisioned more import volumes for the first two quarters of next year,” Balisacan said at the Philippine Economic Briefing.

However, he declined to disclose the volume of rice imports the government has been planning to order.

“We don’t know the exact numbers (for the imports) yet but we have some provisions already,” he said, noting the data on the areas that are expected to be adversely affected by the dry spell, and the farmers’ intention to plant, among others, have yet to be gathered.

 “What I’m trying to say is we know there is going to be a shortfall so we are making the minimum buffer that we need to have to ensure there would be no sharp increases in the prices of rice,” Balisacan said.

Earlier, the NFA Council approved the importation of 1.8 million metric tons of rice this year, including the 500,000 MT bought from Thailand and Vietnam in the first quarter. Another 250,000 MT of the approved volume were meant for the lean season, while 250,000 MT were set aside for reserves.

The remaining 805,200 MT were private sector imports under the government’s minimum access volume allocation.