DA: Rice prices to stabilize as harvest starts September

Rice and palay prices would stabilize as farmers begin to harvest their main season crop in September and October, targeting an initial harvest of 5 million metric tons (MMT), the Department of Agriculture (DA) said Sunday.

Based on Philippine Rice Information System (PRiSM) estimates as of August 14, the initial palay harvest was expected to reach 2 MMT by the end of September, and 3 MMT in October, totaling 5 MMT.

"In all, for the second semester, or July to December, we estimate to produce more than 11 million metric tons, and barring strong typhoons in the remaining months of the year, we hope to hit the 20-million MT level for 2023 national palay output," DA Undersecretary for Rice Industry Development Leo Sebastian said in a report to President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.

Marcos, who sits as the concurrent Agriculture Secretary, earlier approved the joint recommendation of the DA and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to set price ceilings on rice in the country amid the surge in retail prices of rice in local markets.

This set the mandated price ceiling for regular milled rice at P41 per kilo and P45 per kilo for well-milled rice, based on Executive Order No. 39.

For September, Sebastian said the Philippine Rice Industry Stakeholders Movement (PRISM) reported that the bulk of the 2.3 MMT harvest would come from the following provinces:

Isabela (419,000+ MT), Cagayan (172,000+ MT), Iloilo (148,000+ MT), Nueva Ecija (137,000+ MT), North Cotabato (95,000+ MT), Leyte (91,000+ MT), Oriental Mindoro (77,000+ MT), Camarines Sur (76,000+ MT), Palawan (73,000+ MT), Bukidnon (61,000+ MT), Zamboanga del Sur (55,000+ MT), and Davao del Norte (52,000+ MT)

An estimated 2.9-MMT palay yield, meanwhile, was expected to come from these areas by the end of October:

Nueva Ecija (440,000+ MT), Pangasinan (258,000+ MT), Tarlac (172,000+ MT), Isabela (163,000+ MT), Occidental Mindoro (153,000+ MT), Cagayan (151,000+ MT), Oriental Mindoro (110,000+ MT), Palawan (90,000+ MT), Bulacan (74,000+ MT), Iloilo (74,000+ MT), Bukidnon (69,000+ MT), Agusan del Sur (61,000+ MT), Ilocos Sur (59,000+ MT), Leyte (55,000+ MT), and Camarines Sur (53,000+ MT)

As for the 2023-2024 dry season, Sebastian said the DA, under Marcos' Masagana Rice Industry Development Program, would continue to provide clustered rice farmers with needed high-yielding seeds, fertilizers, biofertilizers, soil ameliorants, farm machinery, and extension, financial, and marketing support.

"Initially, we will focus on fully irrigated clustered farms to optimize palay yield, where farmers would plant high-yielding hybrid rice varieties, to at least one million hectares (ha), and we expect them to produce an average of six to eight MT per hectare, for a total of 6 to 8 MMT,” he added. — DVM, GMA Integrated News