Typhoon damage may affect PH – DA rice sufficiency targets

Rice fields submerged in floods after heavy rains.

MANILA, Philippines – Damage from recent typhoons may result in a decrease in the country’s self-sufficiency for rice by a small percentage of the current Department of Agriculture (DA) target, Secretary William Dar said Thursday.

In an interview with the ABS-CBN news channel, Dar said the district attorney wants to raise the country’s rice self-sufficiency level for rice to 93 percent.

“Now, if we are able to meet that target, we will only have to import seven percent of our total rice consumption,” he said.

“With the typhoon damage now, that could decrease and bring us back to almost 89 percent to 90 percent. We still have to contribute 10 percent of our total rice consumption, ”he added.

Dar said that if the country can produce 90 percent of its target stock of rice, the supply of the remaining percentage will have to be imported from other countries.

When asked if this means there will be more rice imports by 2021, Dar said: “Yes, that is a fact, because we still cannot produce 100 percent of our needs.”

However, he assured that the country still has a sufficient supply of rice despite the devastation caused by recent typhoons, the latest of which was Typhoon Ulysses which caused severe flooding in parts of Luzon.

He said that only eight days of rice supply has been damaged and that the country still has enough rice supply for 82 days.

“Within the year, as I said, by the end of the year meron pa tayong (we still have) 82 days to go, which means that it will bring us another 82 days from January 2021, then the production of meron na tayong at the end of March and April, ”he also said.

Typhoons Quinta, Rolly and Ulysses have caused P12.3 billion in damage to the agricultural sector according to DA data as of Thursday morning.

EDV

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