MANILA, Philippines--The government is reviewing whether it needs to import more rice given the shrinking local palay production.

After the closing ceremonies of the Coral Triangle Initiative Business Summit, Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said he had directed the Interagency Committee on Rice and Corn to decide whether the country should change its programmed import volume of 2.4 million tons for 2010.

?I told them, ?give me a number because conventional wisdom does not hold.? The BAS (Bureau of Agricultural Statistics) was saying the expected robust yields in the dry months may not be achieved,? Yap said.

Yap declined to say whether the Philippines?the world?s top rice importer?may call for fresh supply contracts, although he did not rule out the possibility.

?They (interagency committee) may say we are comfortable, or we need more or status quo,? he said, referring to the current rice import cap of 2.4 million tons.

Yap said there were conflicting data from agricultural experts. At first, he said, rice-planted areas were expected to expand as typhoons in late 2009 improved water levels in irrigation dams.

However, recent data show that farm losses late last year caused many farmers to scrimp on fertilizer use to lower their cost of production as financing became hard to come by. El Niño, a weather pattern that causes drought, may also lessen yields especially in rain-fed areas.

Data from the BAS showed that rice production for January-June 2010 might be lower than year-ago level.

BAS projects that rice output for the first half of 2010 may reach 7.25 million tons, 1.72 percent below last year?s 7.38 million tons.

The agency earlier said palay production contracted by 13 percent year on year in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Palay production for the whole of 2009 went down by 3.31 percent to 16.26 million tons from the 2008 level of 16.82 million tons. This was because typhoon ?Pepeng? and Tropical Storm Ondoy wiped out more than a million tons of rough rice from paddies.

BAS assistant director Maura S. Lizarondo said in November that the last time rice production contracted was in 1998?a year when El Niño struck.