The country’s self-sufficiency in rice fell to its lowest level in almost four decades, as milling recovery dropped while imports were at record high last year.
The country’s rice self-sufficiency ratio (SSR), which measures the overall share of local supply to total supply, fell to 71.7 percent in 2024, the lowest in 37 years, based on Philippine Statistics Authority data.
The PSA data showed that this is the lowest rice SSR since the data series started in 1988. The latest rice SSR figure surpassed the previous record low of 72.1 percent in 1998.
On an annual basis, the rice SSR of 71.7 percent last year was 6.2 percentage points lower than the 77.9 percent recorded level in 2023, according to the PSA.
Since 1988, this is the fifth time that the country’s rice SSR was below the 80 percent level (1998, 2019, 2022, 2023). The four years (2019, 2022, 2023, 2024) that rice SSR fell below 80 percent were all after the government liberalized the country’s rice trade regime in 2019, which allowed the easier entry of foreign supplies.
‘SSR shows the magnitude of production in relation to domestic utilization. It is the extent to which a country’s supply of commodities is derived from its own domestic production,’ the PSA said.
The latest rice SSR means that for every one kilo of rice supply in the country, around 717 grams came from domestic production while the remaining grams were imported.
Agriculture industry groups and experts attributed the drop in rice SSR to record-high imports last year that ate up some of the local production’s market share, coupled with the reduction in domestic production estimate due to lower milling recovery rate.
In estimating the rice SSR, the PSA has implemented the revised palay-rice milling recovery of 63 percent from the previous 65.4 percent. This means that local rice production loses more rice in the milling process compared to before.
Meanwhile, the country produced 19.08 million metric tons of palay last year equivalent to 12.02 million metric tons of rice while it imported a record-high of 4.74 million metric tons of rice, based on PSA data.
‘The lower milling recovery rate of 63 percent shows how much of local rice is lost after harvest, while record-high imports show the growing gap between what the country produces and what it needs,’ Marie Annette Dacul, executive director of University of Asia and the Pacific’s Center for Food and Agri Business, told The STAR.
‘The drop in the country’s rice self-sufficiency to its lowest level shows ongoing problems in the rice value chain. This reminds us that rice security isn’t just about growing more, it’s about fixing the whole system: improving how we mill, store, and move rice, and finding the right balance between imports and our own production,’ she said.
The Federation of Free Farmers and Philippine Chamber of Agriculture and Food Inc. claimed that the PSA keeps on using the wrong formula in estimating the country’s self-sufficiency level since demand is not a factor in the statistical agency’s formula.
The PSA computes a commodity’s SSR by dividing local production with the total supply, which is computed by subtracting exports from the combined volume of local production and imports, multiplied by 100.
‘The computation should involve the demand. If our estimates are incorrect then it may have an impact on crafting our policies,’ PCAFI president Danilo Fausto told The STAR.
International Rice Research Institute scientist Shyam Basnet said the Philippines would continue importing around 15 percent of its rice supplies if current diet patterns and productivity levels remain the same.
Shyam pointed out that Filipinos’ diet remains rice-heavy with rice and rice-based products accounting for around 72 percent of cereal consumption.
‘Rice imports were about 7.2 percent of consumption in 2000 and have climbed to nearly 14 percent today. By contrast, the country was largely self-sufficient in the 1980s, when population and per-capita rice consumption were lower.’
The Marcos administration plans to achieve a rice SSR of 90 percent at the end of its term.