Rice inventory down in August

MANILA, Philippines — The country’s rice inventory went down by 16.3 percent to 1.79 million metric tons (MT) as of end-August from 2.13 million MT in the same period last year, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

The current inventory is also 15.1 percent lower than the previous month’s volume stock of 2.1 million MT.

The PSA did not specify the number of days that the stock inventory of Filipinos’ main staple will be sufficient.

But, based on the average daily consumption of Filipinos of 32,000 MT, the current inventory is sufficient for 56 days.

Households had nearly half of total inventories at 48 percent while commercial warehouses held about 41 percent. Supplies from the National Food Authority depositories cornered 11 percent of the total.

On a monthly basis, rice stocks in households and commercial warehouses decreased by 21 percent and 10 percent, respectively. An eight percent decrease was also noted in NFA depositories.

Meanwhile, prices of Filipinos’ main staple continued to be on the downward trend year-on-year and have already stabilized compared to when the quarantine started in March.

The PSA said the average wholesale price of well-milled rice is now at P38.91 per kilogram as of the third week of August.

This is 0.4 percent lower than the P39.07 per kilo level from the same period a year ago, and 0.2 percent lower on a weekly basis.

Its average retail price also decreased by 0.4 percent to P42.42 per kilo, while week-on-week prices went down by 0.1 percent.

Meanwhile, the wholesale price of regular-milled rice was P35.35 per kilo, down 0.2 percent, while its average retail price was at P38.11 a kilo.

Local farmers, on the other hand, continue to slowly see a gradual increase in farm gate prices.

The average farm gate price of palay is now at P18.39 per kilo, a 4.4 percent improvement from the P17.61 per kilo last year. On a weekly basis, it also registered a 0.2 percent increase.