DA adopts 'demand management' strategy in rice program

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Agriculture is adopting a “demand management” strategy as part of its overall rice self sufficiency roadmap.

Based on this strategy, the DA will encourage the consumption of other food staples such as white corn grits, cassava, sweet potato and banana.

According to the DA’s plan, shifting of rice consumption to white corn consumption would result in a lower per capita rice consumption from 120 kilograms per year in 2011 to 114 kg/yr in 2013.

Likewise, it would result in an increase in per capita white corn consumption from only seven kg/yr in 2011 to 13 kg/yr in 2013.

The DA would encourage the production of white corn by maintaining a support price to white corn of at least P13/kg.

The National Food Authority (NFA) would procure white corn from July to December or during the main harvest period and sell the white corn in corn earing areas from January to June which are the lean months/season.

Based on the DA’s projected rice requirement without demand management, the rice requirement in 2011would be 13.44 million metric ton; increasing to 13.58 MMT in 2012; 13.72 MMT by 2013; 14.02 MMT in 2014; 14.31 MMT in 2015 and 14.62 MMT by 2016.

However, by adopting a demand management strategy, the rice requirement initially in 2011 would still be at 13.44 MMT but would slow down to 13.39 MMT and even perhaps decrease to 13.32 MMT in 2013, before moving up to 13.6 MMT in 2014 and climbing to 13.89 MMT in 2015 before hitting 14.19 MMT by 2016.

The demand strategy component is only part of the DA’s roadmap which includes improving production, adopting marketing reforms for the NFA and trade management.