Farmers who depend on pumps for irrigation water suffer from the increased fuel prices. Their fuel consumption accounts for some 30% of their total production cost. TRAIN increases the production cost of pump-dependent farmers by 50 centavos for every kilogram of palay produced, which diminishes their income by 10%. Mechanization does not significantly increase farm fuel cost. To cushion the ill effects of TRAIN on rice farming, pump-dependent farmers have […]

Rice prices are expected to drop when trade protection shall have finally been relaxed in compliance with our international trade agreements. To remain in the market, farmers have to strategize on how to compete in terms of quality and price of their products. This policy brief tackles Hybrid Rice as one of the ways to help farmers survive in a market with tight competition, especially with cheaper imported rice. It […]

The Philippines (PH) currently adopts tariff and quantitative restriction (QR) as trade protection for rice. Tariffs are taxes imposed on traded products; QRs limit the volume of imported rice allowed into the country. Trade protection regulates the influx of cheaper imported rice in the local market, and shields local farmers and traders from superior competition. If government would remove QR, local rice prices would drop (Litonjua and Bordey, 2014; Bordey […]

The Philippine rice industry will soon bear the brunt of global competition. In 2017, the government may no longer be able to control the volume of rice to be imported. Cheap imported rice will compete in the local market as long as it is subject to 35% tariff. As a result, local wholesale price will mirror the wholesale import parity price – which is the equivalent price of imported rice […]

Zero rice importation or self-sufficiency has always been the elusive goal of Philippine agriculture policies regardless of political dispensation. Any inferior goal is unpatriotic and criticized as a failure of the government and the nation as a whole. Figure 1 shows the historical net rice imports of the Philippines.

Tariffs and quantitative restrictions (QR) are used to control the entry of imported rice in the country. Tariffs are taxes imposed on traded products; QRs are measures such as quotas and bans that limit the volume of rice allowed into the country.

Organic fertilizer is made of animal or plant biomass that has completely decomposed until the original material has become soil-like in texture. Biofertilizers, or microbial fertilizers, compost activators, inoculums are commonly classified as organic fertilizers, but they are either soil conditioners or growth enhancers.

Per Capita Rice Consumption (PCRC) is an approximate measure of the amount of milled rice consumed by a person in a year. This is a critical variable used in estimating the rice requirement of the country. Therefore, this has an impact on setting the import requirement of the country. Increased PCRC means more imported rice1.

Boosting research, production, and promotion of brown rice to fit the purchasing power and appetites of ordinary families is instrumental in addressing our nutrition concerns and narrowing the gap between domestic rice supply and demand.

The country aims at rice self-sufficiency by 2013. This could be realized if government services proposed in the Food Staples Self-Sufficiency Roadmap for 2011 to 2016 would be extended immediately, because these will directly or indirectly influence national rice production. One of the working hands of the Department of Agriculture (DA) is the National Food Authority (NFA).