The Philippines is not keen on imposing a ban on imported rice as the country prepares for the food supply impact of the strong El Niño later this year, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said Tuesday.
"There will be no import ban definitely because as I mentioned earlier there is a big El Niño coming towards November, December," Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. told reporters.
"Technically we have to have buffer stocks para in preparation for December, January, February , March, [and] April next year," he added.
The Agriculture chief made the pronouncement as the country's rice imports surpassed three million metric tons (MT), while local harvest is about to begin in the "ber" months.
"Actually, rice imports are already at 3.3 million metric tons as of yesterday," Tiu Laurel said.
Nevertheless, the Agriculture chief said the agency will not let farm-gate prices of palay or unhusked rice for local farmers fall due to higher volume of rice imports.
"The difference this year and last year, the NFA is ready to buy rice. We are ready to buy 500,000 tons of palay from our local farmers," Tiu Laurel said.
"Hindi kagaya last year, punong-puno lahat ng warehouse namin. Ang instruction sa NFA dapat by September halos wala na laman warehouses nila kaya importante palakihin at pataasin ang volume sa P20 peso [per kilo] na rice para mabakante mga warehouse at makabili kami sa tamang presyo."
(It's not like last year when our warehouses were full. The instructions to the NFA is that by September the warehouses must be nearly empty, so it's important to increase the volume of P20 rice to empty the warehouses and we can buy again at the right price.)
He said the National Food Authority has a budget of P20 billion for local palay procurement this year, higher than last year's P9-billion allocation.
The NFA, he said, will buy wet palay at P21 per kilogram and P25 to P27 per kilogram for dry palay from local farmers.
Extension for import price cap no longer needed
Meanwhile the P50 price cap on imported rice which was earlier recommended for extension is no longer necessary as prices of imported rice in markets are now even below the price cap, Laurel said.
Agriculture and Trade department officials conducted price monitoring on Tuesday at the Las Piñas Public Market.
"Yung sa price cap natin, mukhang di naman kailangan ng price cap base sa ikot namin kanina because ang...sinet was 50 [pesos] and ang nakikita namin kanina may mga 47, 48, 50," Laurel said.
(The price cap does not seem to be necessary based on our inspection because the price cap was se t at P50 and we were seeing P47, P48, P50.)
He added that because of this the price of local rice could also go down to P47 to P50 come harvest season.
" Napaghandaan natin itong darating na El Niño, huwag lang may malaking sakuna na mangyari like a super typhoon na dadaan sa ating mga harvested area. Assuming wala nun o kaya normal lang na tama sa atin ng climate we should be okay, no problem," he said.
(We made preparations for the coming El Niño. As long as a big disaster doesn't happen like a super typhoon that passes over the harvest areas, assuming that doesn't happen and we just have the normal climate effects, we should be OK, no problem.)
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