Analysis on Rice Market in Philippines

Rice Production and Consumption in the Philippines

As for rice production, the Philippines is the 8th largest rice producer in the world, which occupied for 2.8% of global rice production. In the Philippines, rice production is a key part of its daily food supply and economic development. But there is a strange thing about rice in the Philippines, that is, it is the major rice producers as well as the major rice importer in the world.

The following is the rice production in the Philippines for five years.

Philippines Milled Rice Production by Year

Rice Consumption in the Philippines
As we can see from the chart, given its population of 101 million people, there are a lot of mouths to feed in the Philippines.

As the statistic showed above, thought rice production with an increasing rate of 0.029% in the Philippines, the Philippines was the world’s largest rice importer. According to a statistic given by the Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization(PhilMech), due to the population growth rate continues to increase of 101 million, the demand for food also increases. So, it is not surprising that the Philippines has imported with a total cost of $464.5 million of rice from their rice-supplying countries in 2015. “The volume of Philippines-bound milled rice is expected to rise in 2016, keeping the country among the world’s biggest importers at No. 3”, according to the US Department of Agriculture on December 16, 2016. The growing demand for rice, to a certain degree, has promoted the demand for advanced milling technology and equipment.

High Demand for High-quality Rice Requires Advanced Post-harvest Technology

The proper post-harvest handling and technologies would not only reduce losses and improve the quality of products but it will also help the people establish their own farm-level secondary handling and value-added processing businesses, resulting in more job opportunities, thus empower and improve the lives of farmers.

Modern rice milling technology boosts the rice supply condition in the Philippines. In order to achieve the self-sufficiency of high-quality rice, the Philippines government is working to make rice farmers cooperative as the key partners in the modernization of the rice milling industry. Based on surveys and field studies conducted by PhilMech, most rice mills in the rural areas in the Philippines use single-pass mills where the recovery rate from palay (unhusked rice) is from 50 percent to 57 percent. Some high-performance rice milling machines are popular in use in recent days, such as NF Series Air-Spraying Iron Roller Rice Milling Equipment and MNML Series Rice Milling Machine. With the strong support of their government, many rice farmers are engaged in rice farming so that they can take ownership of their own rice mills, and the farmers’ rice mills are more efficient than most that are currently operated by rice millers and some farmer cooperatives. Otherwise, the operation of the multi-pass rice mills has contributed about 8% to 13% of the supply of rice in the Philippines. The multi-pass milling machine like MLNH 15 Complete Set Rice Milling Equipment and 100T/D Automatic Rice Mill Production Line, are popular use in the local area. Mills using the multi-pass technology made available to qualified farmer cooperatives, and a multi-pass rice mill has greatly improved the efficiency of rice milling machine and rice quality.

Challenges and opportunities for rice production in the Philippines

Thought rice production has increased significantly, there are still some challenges in agriculture development in the Philippines. These include: the increasing growth of population and demand for industrial land area, the climate change, the high cost of inputs for rice farmers, and the poor drainage and inadequate irrigation facilities are the major constraints to rice production in the Philippines.

Firstly, the increasing demand for residential, commercial, and industrial land reduces the agriculture area for rice growing, which was the major reason for the shortage of rice supply in domestic. Secondly, climate change and the vulnerability of crop production to drought and heavy rainfall, especially during the typhoon season, impose a significant effect on rice production. Thirdly, due to its geographical position, the Philippines should bear the brunt of typhoons coming in from the Pacific Ocean. The successive heavy rains would cause severe drainage problems in paddy fields, thus resulting in a serious reduction in rice yield and quality. The last but not the least, lacking funds for maintaining the deteriorated irrigation systems is also one of the problems for farmers.

All in all, for the Philippines to become self-sufficient in rice is still a long way. To curb the population growth, improve varieties and know-how for agriculture development, a better quality of seed combined with good management, including new postharvest technologies, is the best way to improve rice yields and the quality of production.