MANILA, Philippines - Upbeat on the success of its Food Staples Sufficiency Program (FSSP) this year, the Department of Agriculture is confident that the country’s perennial rice importation will become mere history beginning next year.
DA Undersecretary Dante de lima, also the national rice program head, said sustained good rice harvests would eliminate the need for any more rice importation, including that by the private sector as proposed in Congress.
The only exception, according to Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala, is the 350,000 metric tons of rice that will have to be allowed into the country under the Minimum Access Volume agreed upon with the World Trade Organization.
This year, the National Food Authority imported 187,000 metric tons of rice under a government-to-government agreement with Vietnam for its buffer stock requirement, but this was way below the 350,000-MT MAV, with Alcala banning private sector rice imports.
Alcala described the 350,000-MT MAV as still big even when compared with the millions of tons of rice import that went to waste during the previous administration.
He vowed never to allow thousands of sacks of rice to similarly rot inside the warehouses of the National Food Authority (NFA) by importing more than actually needed.
He also warned that allowing private sector to import rice could only open the door to big-time rice smuggling and product dumping.
The country’s expected 20 million metric tons of rice production this year, although a bit affected by losses from typhoon Odette, is projected to still exceed last year’s record yield of over 18 million metric tons.
The country’s rice production recorded a historic high of 18,032,422 mt in 2012 from 16,684,062 in 2011 and 15,772,319 in 2010.
At the same time, the country’s rice importation registered a historic low of only 208,600.70 in 2013 from 688,559.80 in 2012, 1,063,985.41 in 2011 and 2,369,403.43 in 2010.
Rice importation by the NFA also dropped to 119,776.55 in 2012 from 251,300 in 2011 and 2,149,096.34 in 2010, and by the private sector to 372,527.00 in 2012 from 654,994.64 in 2011.
In 2010, the private sector imported only 219,981 mt as the NFA accounted for 2,149,096.14 of the total 2,369,403.43 rice imports during that period.
However, all importation figures have significantly declined since Alcala assumed office in the latter half of 2010 and launched a rice sufficiency campaign that many still regard as a mission impossible.
Nonetheless, that campaign, dubbed Food Staples Sufficiency Program, is now nearing a phenomenal and historic success.
“We are almost there (rice sufficiency),†Alcala said.