The Department of Agriculture (DA) reassures the public that the country’s rice supply is adequate for the entire year with a comfortable level of inventory.

“Going into the lean months and onto December 31, 2020, we have enough supply of food, and that includes our major staple – rice,” Agriculture Secretary William Dar said.

“We remain consistent that our total projected supply of rice by end of December 2020 would be 17.994 million metric tons (MMT), while our total projected demand would be 14.668 MMT, leaving a year-end inventory of 3.326 MMT,” said the DA chief.

“This, in turn, serves as our beginning inventory in January 2021, which is good for 94 days’ supply,” he added.

The DA estimated the projected 2020 year-end supply using three components, namely:

Beginning stock in January 2020 or the surplus in December 2019;
Total domestic palay production, from January to December 2020; and
Total rice imports, January to December 2020, including the 300,000 MT to be imported by the DTI’s Philippine International Trading Corp. under a government-to-government arrangement.

The respective figures are gathered by the DA’s Field Operations Service (FOS) from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), Bureau of Customs (BOC) on rice imports, other relevant government agencies, and DA regional field offices (RFOs) in tandem with local government units (LGUs), on palay production.

The PSA’s supply utilization accounts of selected agricultural commodities showed that, of the total rice demand, an average of only 88 percent (%) serves as food or what is actually eaten, the remaining 12% is alloted for seeds, feeds and industrial uses.

Hence, of the total projected demand of 14.488 MMT, the actual rice that would be consumed as food would only amount to 12.9 MMT.

Further, the PSA reported that on average, a Filipino consumes a total of 118.81 kilograms (kg) annually. This is equivalent to 325.5 grams of milled rice daily.

With a current population of 108.66 million Filipinos, the country’s total annual consumption would amount to 12.9 MMT.

“We hope this will clarify issues on our rice supply, demand, and consumption situation. Again, we assure the nation that the DA is doing its best to secure the country with enough and affordable food for all. Our programs to make this happen are already in place to help our farmers and fisherfolk,” Secretary Dar concluded./Stacy Ang