Rice stocks down in June

MANILA, Philippines — The country’s rice inventory declined in June as the volume of the main staple continues to be released.

Latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed that total rice inventory stood at 2.4 million metric tons (MT) as of June, 7.8 percent lower than the previous year’s volume stock of 2.6 million MT.

The current inventory is also 14.3 percent lower than the previous month’s volume stock of 2.79 million MT.

Based on the average daily consumption of Filipinos of 32,000 MT, the current inventory is sufficient for 75 days.

Households had more than half of total inventories at 52.4 percent while commercial warehouses held about 37.2 percent. Supplies from the National Food Authority depositories cornered 10.4 percent of the total.

On a monthly basis, rice stocks in households and commercial warehouses decreased by 17 percent and seven percent, respectively. A 22 percent drop was also noted in NFA depositories.

Meanwhile, prices of Filipinos’ main staple have slowly stabilized.

The average wholesale price of well-milled rice is now P39.05 per kilogram as of the second week of July. This is 0.3 percent lower than the P39.15 per kilo level a year ago.

Average retail price also decreased by 1.1 percent to P42.47 per kilo while week-on-week prices went down 0.3 percent.

Meanwhile, the wholesale price of regular-milled rice was P35.50 per kilo, up 0.5 percent while its average retail price was P38.35 a kilo.

Local farmers, on the other hand, are slowly seeing a gradual increase in farm gate prices.

The average farm gate price of palay is now at P18.49 per kilo, up 0.5 percent on a weekly basis.

The current price is also a four percent improvement from the P17.79 per kilo last year.