Rice prices continued to go down for the eleventh consecutive week in time for the holiday season given the ample supply of the staple in the market, but the Department of Agriculture (DA) said local rice production this year would not hit a new high as projected earlier.
Government data showed that as of the second week of December, retail prices of regular-milled and well-milled rice declined by 0.64 and 0.61 percent from last week, respectively, to P41.90 and P45.65 a kilogram.
However, they are still higher by 10.03 percent and 8.05 percent from prices last year.
It is not certain when prices will fully stabilize.
The Rice Tariffication Act is expected to bring down prices of rice by as much as P6 a kilogram, but industry groups and even Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol are not too sold on the idea, noting that the country has long been importing rice but this has not lowered prices in the market.
A slight uptick in the farm-gate price of palay was also registered in the same period to P20.11 a kilo, up 0.50 percent from the prior week. This is higher than the earlier forecast by Piñol who said prices of palay might stabilize at P18 a kilo before the year ends.
To recall, the farm-gate price of palay reached its highest on record at P23.15 a kilo in September due to low supply and high demand.
Earlier this year, the agriculture secretary said rice production might reach a new high this year following favorable prices of palay that would encourage farmers to plant the staple.
However, the entry of several typhoons in the country gravely damaged farm lands. For the first nine months of the year, palay production stood at 11.91 million metric tons, making it improbable for the sector to surpass its record last year at 19.26 million MT— the highest level on record.