Philippines self-sufficient in rice

The Philippines’ self-sufficiency ratio (SSR) in rice went up to 85.83 percent while the SSR for corn dropped to 95.88 percent in 2009, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said in a recent report. In its “Food Sufficiency and Security” report, the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS), an attached agency of the Agriculture department, said that the country’s SSR in rice went up to 85.83 percent in 2009, some 3.93 percentage points higher compared to the 2008, despite the relatively low production output during the period.

One of the objectives of Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala Jr. is to make the country 100-percent self sufficient in rice by 2013.

At present, the Philippines is the world’s largest rice importer.

In contrast, the SSR for corn declined by 3.82 percentage points to 95.88 percent in 2009, the BAS said.

Import dependency ratio (IDR) for rice in 2009 was 14.17 percent, or 3.94 percentage points lower than last year’s record while the IDR for corn went up to 4.13 percent in 2009 from the previous year’s 0.33 percent.

During a telephone interview, BAS statistician Amparo Afunggol attributed the higher SSR of rice to the bigger volume of beginning stocks at the National Food Authority (NFA) warehouses, which was pegged at 2.639 million metric tons in 2009, compared to 2.172 million metric tons the previous year.

Another possible reason for the higher SSR of rice, according to Afunggol, was the shift to other staple commodities such as corn and wheat during the said period.

The self-sufficiency ratio report–under the Development Indicators for the Philippine Agriculture 2010 and published annually by the BAS under the Agricultural Indicators System (AIS)–measures the extent to which a country relies on its own production to meet the food needs of the local populace.

The fourth module presents indicators on self-sufficiency ratio and import dependency ratio of select agricultural commodities, and data on rice and corn stocks.

The reference years are from 2005 to 2009.

BAS said that it is important to monitor the stocks situation of the staple grains to ensure food security, since information on monthly stockholdings can guide policy makers on how much and when to resort to exportation or importation.

In 2009, the peak month of rice stocking was recorded in November with about 2.96 million metric tons.

Of this volume, about 45.6 percent were held by the households, 38.7 percent were at the NFA depositories while 15.7 percent were in commercial warehouses.

In contrast, the lowest volume of rice stocks at 2.17 million metric tons was noted in March.

Households shared 45.9 percent of these stocks and NFA contributed 37.6 percent and the remaining 16.5 percent were kept at commercial warehouses.

The biggest volume of corn stocks in 2009 was reported in September at 0.39 million metric tons.

Commercial warehouses held the biggest share at 44.4 percent of the total inventory of corn stocks and households contributed 39.8 percent and NFA shared 15.8 percent.

In the same year, the leanest month was March with 0.14 million metric tons of corn stocks of which 53.8 percent were at the commercial warehouses and 46.2 percent were with the households.

Other commodities

The report also showed that there has been a continued 100-percent self-sufficiency for coconut and sugarcane, while coffee production was more inadequate in 2009 with its SSR decreasing by 4.13 percentage points to 68.74 percent.

The country was consistently self-sufficient in banana, pineapple, mango, calamansi, pomelo and papaya last year.

Banana still maintained a higher SSR despite its drop to 122.64 percent in 2009 from the previous year’s 133.76 percent, while pineapple recorded a decline in SSR at 110.26 percent.

Banana and pineapple are exported by the Philippines.

For vegetables and root crops, adequacy in production was noted for tomato, cabbage, eggplant, cassava and sweet potato.

Self-sufficiency ratios were lower for garlic, peanut and mongo at 23.89 percent, 47.46 percent and 46.22 percent, respectively.

Onion exhibited an improved SSR at 97.34 percent in 2009 compared to the previous year’s 68.45 percent.

The SSR of potato was 98.55 percent.

Among livestock products, insufficiency in beef and carabeef production continued but their corresponding SSRs rose to 82.02 percent and 68.40 percent in 2009.

Meanwhile, the SSR for pork was continuously declining over the years, from 2005 to 2009 and it went down to 94.91 percent in 2009.

The local production of chevon or goat meat was not enough in 2009 compared to the past four years.

In the case of chicken, the SSR went down further to 93.56 percent.

Self-sufficiency was nearly achieved for chicken eggs and duck.

Self-sufficiency in fishery products such as milkfish, roundscad (galunggong), tilapia, shrimps and prawns and crabs was sustained in 2009.

In that year, tuna production became inadequate and its SSR fell to 89.85 percent, or by 9.31 percentage points; while oyster had an estimated SSR of 99.93 percent.

The report said that coffee imports increased and the IDR moved up to 31.26 percent in 2009.

Also, heavy dependence on importation was continuously recorded for garlic, peanut and mongo.

In 2009, IDR of peanut went up to 52.54 percent, while IDRs of garlic and mongo dropped to 76.11 percent and 53.80 percent, respectively.

In the case of onion, lower volume of importation was noted in 2009, thus, IDR dropped from 35.18 percent in 2008 to 7.70 percent in 2009.

The country’s dependence on potato imports dropped to 1.45 percent in 2009.

Imports of beef and carabeef declined in 2009 and they recorded declining IDRs, which corresponded to 17.98 percent and 31.70 percent, respectively.

The country’s reliance on importation was estimated at 5.09 percent for pork and 6.95 percent for chicken.

Ratios of less than 1 percent were recorded for chevon, duck and chicken eggs.

This was similarly observed in most of the fishery products, with tuna exhibiting increasing dependency on imports and in 2009, the IDR was computed at 13.86 percent.  –Manila Times