President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. over the weekend assured consumers that the country had a sufficient supply of rice, and told farmers that the Philippines would not import the grain as long as this remained true.
In a video message, Mr. Marcos said the two recent typhoons did P3 billion
worth of damage to crops, affecting 142,000 hectares of agricultural land, but the supply of rice was still enough.
“So that it’s clear to us, I want to clarify. We have enough rice supply and we have nothing to worry about,” he said.
“Our farmers should expect that we won’t import rice if we have enough supply in the Philippines. Don’t worry. We have rice,” he added.
The President said the government is closely monitoring the rice buffer stock in the National Food Authority (NFA) supply warehouses.
“We’re ensuring that the NFA has more buffer stock because we also encounter more calamities here in the Philippines,” he said.
However, the President said that the problem is that other Southeast Asian nations are also securing their rice buffer stock to prepare for the looming El Niño by late this year or early 2024.
“All of us are preparing for the El Niño. That’s why it’s difficult because all of us are buying at the same time,” he said.
President Marcos, who also heads the Department of Agriculture (DA) as its concurrent secretary, said that countries exporting rice have started to limit, if not stop, exporting the commodity. This included India, with which he initially wanted to make a rice deal.
President Marcos also said that he is talking with the people he met during his overseas trips to secure the country’s rice buffer stock.
“We’re looking at our friends. It’s a good thing that I met many of them during my travels. I’m talking to them now,” he said.
“They might allow us to import rice from their country. But we’ll only do that if we don’t have enough rice supply,” he added.
The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said on Sunday that the damage and losses in the agriculture sector due to the southwest monsoon enhanced by Typhoons Egay and Falcon reached an estimated P2.9 billion.
Based on the latest report of the council, the Agriculture Department recorded a total of P2.945 billion in production losses or damage in the Ilocos Region, Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, Region IV-A and IV-B, Western Visayas, Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), and Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR).
The NDRRMC also reported at least 108,729 fishers and farmers were also affected by the damage to 153,268.39 hectares of crop area. Some 132,074.62 hectares were partially damaged and still have a chance at recovery, while 20,104.44 hectares were totally damaged and no longer had a chance at recovery.
The National Irrigation Administration (NIA), meanwhile, said the cost of damage in the Mimaropa and CAR came to P137.78 million. The bad weather also damaged 573 structures at a cost of P3.63 billion.
The CAR logged the highest amount of infrastructure damage involving 347 structures at a cost of P2.26 billion.
The reported casualties remained at 29, two of whom were confirmed and there were also 11 more people still reported missing and 165 were injured.
Storms Egay and Falcon together and the monsoon affected 3,032,077 people or 806,836 families in 4,833 barangays nationwide. Some 648 evacuation centers sheltered over 51,000 displaced people or 13,000 families, while more than 233,000 people or 57,000 families stayed outside of evacuation centers.
The NDRRMC recorded 60,991 houses damaged due to the weather disturbances. Of these houses, 58,610 were partially damaged, and 2,381 were destroyed. Sixty-two roads and four bridges were still not passable.
The NDRRMC said P269.45 million in assistance had been provided to affected regions so far.
Despite the President’s assurances, Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri said he believes that food security cannot be assured because of several factors beyond the country’s control.
He noted that the country’s sources of rice imports such as India have become uncertain.
India, the world’s largest rice exporter, banned the exports of non-basmati white rice on Jul. 20 to calm domestic rice prices that had risen more than 30 percent since October 2022.
It was also reported that the cost of Vietnamese rice surged to $600 per metric ton from $500.
Zubiri also cited the big impact of recent typhoons, which blew a big hole in the country’s food basket regions in the North.
This will surely have an effect on the supply of agricultural products, including rice,” Zubiri said.
He said the earlier the country establishes rice production zones (RPZs), the sooner it can buffer the supply of rice and mitigate the effect of calamities.
The Senate leader said the country should start reducing its dependence on imported rice and reduce the risk of food insecurity by putting up RPZs and inundating these with government support and attention.