’13 rice output to exceed year-ago level

Agriculture officials expect domestic rice output in 2013 to have beaten the record volume of 18.03 million metric tons posted in the previous year despite massive crop losses sustained in the aftermath of strong typhoons.

Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala told reporters that based on initial reports from the Department of Agriculture’s field units, the volume of production last year appeared to have exceeded the 2012 level.

Earlier, officials were expecting that the growth in palay output might have been flat, considering the weather disturbances experienced last year.

According to Undersecretary Dante S. Delima, a 1.5-percent production growth in Central Luzon helped shore up the nationwide volume.

Delima said that output expansion was expected to be about 4 percent to 5 percent in the next three years, which would be short of the 6 percent needed to meet domestic demand.

Alcala earlier said the goal to attain full rice self-sufficiency in 2013 was not attained and that the sufficiency level reached only 97 percent to 98 percent.

The agriculture chief said the government was now reviewing its food self-sufficiency program (FSSP).

“The FSSP targets need to be fine-tuned and reviewed because of the magnitude of flooding and storms that hit the country in the past few years,” Alcala said in an interview.

“Earlier projections when the FSSP was conceptualized might not be reasonable given the current situation,” Alcala said.

Earlier, the Food and Agriculture Organization said the effects of bad weather in the Philippines, along with similar problems in China and Pakistan, contributed to a reduction of 5 million tons in the forecast global rice output for 2013.

The United Nations agency said in a report that it had lowered its growth forecast from 1.5 percent to 1.1 percent, with output to reach 741.4 million tons of paddy rice or palay—equivalent to 494.2 million tons of milled rice.

“The deterioration of prospects primarily concerned China, Pakistan and the Philippines, which were hit, in recent months, by erratic climatic events,” the FAO said.