China flooding will not impact Philippine rice supply

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines is safe from constraints in its rice supply even as China, the world’s second largest importer, may raise its purchases after it experienced the worst flooding in decades which damaged many of its farmlands.

Agriculture Secretary William Dar assured the public that the country’s rice inventory would be at a comfortable level this year until early-2021.

“By the end of the year, our outlook is good to last for three months and that will give us enough buffer and our local production is also continuous,” Dar told The STAR.

“This year, we are okay, even until the first half of next year,” he said.

China is currently experiencing its worst flooding in many decades, destroying thousands of acres of farmland near the Yangtze River and losing more than 50 percent of the country’s rice production.

Last year, China emerged as the world’s second largest rice importer, after the Philippines, with demand of about 2.5 million metric tons. Now, the worry lies on how much increase will China import to support its population.

This, according to industry analysts, could shake world market prices and may not be favorable for other importing countries like the Philippines.

The Federation of Free Farmers, however, echoed Dar’s optimism that the Philippines would not be at the losing end in the short term or at least this year.

“China has many grain reserves. What they are doing now is releasing those reserves. But since many were hit by the flood, at some point they would have to replenish and go to the international market if they won’t be able to recover their local supply,” FFF national manager Raul Montemayor told The STAR.

“But for the short term, the China flooding has no immediate impact. I think they are still assessing the situation, because if they had started to import, prices would have already shot up. Prices remain stable right now,” he said.

The government continues to rely on the private sector to continue bringing in rice with imports that already entered the country now at 1.7 million MT, already close to the two million MT target.

“Plus, we have directed the National Food Authority  to continue buying from our farmers to add to our buffer stock,” Dar said, adding that “hopefully, the private sector will also continue to buy this coming harvest season to ensure that our farmers will have good prices. “

Add to this is the P8.5 billion Rice Resiliency Project of the DA which is expected to yield an extra one million MT and improve the country’s self-sufficiency level to 93 percent.