Rice inventory down in February

MANILA, Philippines — The country’s rice inventory dropped 7.7 percent in February, according to data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

In its latest rice and corn stocks inventory report, the PSA said total rice stocks inventory stood at 2.19 million metric tons as of Feb. 1, down from the 2.38 million MT registered in the same month a year ago.

Similarly, the February figure is also six percent lower than the 2.33 million MT registered in January 2020.

Based on the average daily consumption of Filipinos of 32,000 MT, the current inventory is sufficient for 69 days.

As of the third week of January, the average wholesale price of well milled rice decreased 0.1 percent to P37.34 per kilo from P37.37 per kilo the previous week.

Meanwhile, the average retail price of well milled rice retained its previous week’s level of P40.93 per kilo.

In contrast, the price is 0.9 percent lower than its price level of P 41.28 per kilo in the same week of the previous year.

Average wholesale price of regular milled rice dropped 0.1 percent to P33.28 per kilo compared to its previous week’s price of P33.31 per kilo.

However, it picked up at an annual rate of 1.7 percent from its average price of P32.73 per kilo in the same week last year.

Moreover, average retail price of regular milled rice fell by 0.2 percent to P36.08 per kilo from its price level of P36.14/kg.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) earlier said the country has enough rice as nearly 10 million MT of rice are expected to be harvested in the first semester of the year.  Two million MT are expected to be harvested in February from 450,000 hectares.

For March, 2.6 million MT of rice will be harvested from almost 600,000 hectares.