THERE is a standing joke among agricultural scientists in the country that the yearly performance of our agricultural sector depends on the Lord’s mercy.
Farm productivity increases or decreases depending on whether the country has been bestowed with good weather. Heaven is usually blamed if productivity significantly dips. Interestingly, when agriculture performance is on the upswing, this is credited to the supposedly outstanding management capability of agriculture officials.
In this equation, we never seem to have heard about science. We know that science is capable of mitigating impacts if properly applied to any challenging situation. In fact, mankind has long engaged in scientific pursuit to counter nature’s adverse impacts on human existence.
As expected, the woeful performance of the agricultural sector this year is being blamed on nature. It is being claimed that the successive destructive typhoons and the lingering problem of the African swine fever (ASF) are the major reasons for the plummeting performance.
The Philippines Statistics Authority (PSA) has reported that from January to September this year, agricultural output declined by 2.2 percent. Unfortunately, there seems to be no reprieve from this downward trend.
The PSA added that the value of production in agriculture and fisheries, at constant 2018 prices, declined by 3.7 percent in the third quarter compared to the same period last year. This is the deepest in four years, or when agriculture registered a 3.8-percent drop in the fourth quarter of 2020 — at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and the strict lockdown.
Going by commodity breakdowns for the third quarter, the PSA noted that palay (unmilled rice) production fell by 12.3 percent, sugarcane by nearly 84 percent, mango by 11 percent, cassava by 3.9 percent, banana by 1.1 percent, pineapple by 0.4 percent, coconut by 0.1 percent, fisheries by 5.5 percent and livestock by 6.7 percent.
Two commodities registered positive growth rates: poultry, up by 5.8 percent and corn by 1.3 percent.
Palay constitutes around 22 percent of agricultural gross value added (GVA) and fisheries around 20 percent, while livestock, poultry and corn (which is an animal feed ingredient) make up almost 30 percent. These contribute around 70 percent of agricultural GVA. If there is a substantial decline in their output, expect negative growth for the agricultural sector.
What about rice, which is the most important commodity given that it is the staple food of Filipinos? How is our supply situation this year?
The PSA reported that palay harvest fell by 7.5 percent during the first three quarters of this year. Palay production in the first nine months of 2023 was 12.98 million metric tons (MT) compared to this year’s 11.86 million MT. While the fourth quarter is considered peak harvest season, it was in October that Severe Tropical Storm Kristine hit the country and was quickly followed by five more. As such, it is expected that palay output will also shrink during the last quarter of 2024.
The average yearly rice consumption of Filipinos is around 16 million MT. With a palay harvest of a little over 20 million MT in 2023 and a conversion ratio of 65 percent (considered a very efficient milling capacity) to rice, the actual rice supply last year was about 13 million MT. We, therefore, have a deficit of around 3 million MT that we need to fill up via importation.
It looks grim this year as the palay harvest for the first nine months of the year is below 12 million MT. Optimistically assuming that we experience a bountiful harvest of around 7 million MT (from 7.08 million MT in 2023) during the last quarter, this translates to a total palay output of around 18.86 million MT for 2024. This means a 1.2 million MT deficit compared to last year.
Converted into rice, 18.86 million MT of palay is equivalent to around 12.26 million MT of rice at the 65-percent conversion ratio. Thus, we will be short by a staggering amount of around 3.74 million MT to meet average yearly rice consumption.
To prepare for the first two months of next year, when our production is minimal as we await the peak harvest of the dry season crop in March and April, we need to account for the necessary stock.
We anticipate an import requirement between 900,000 MT (good for about 20 days) and 1.2 million MT (sufficient for 30 days) before January. This will bring total estimated imports for 2024 to between 4.64 million MT and 4.94 million MT. We must also begin a new round of imports this January if we are not going to experience deficits during the first quarter of next year.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has revised the country’s rice importation upwards next year to around 4.9 million MT from its previous forecast of 4.6 million MT. Note that the USDA figure approximates the gap we cited based on our crude estimate of the country’s palay output situation.
With destructive typhoons being a common agroclimatic feature of the Philippines, we also need to look at how other countries are coping.
Take for example Vietnam, which is also visited by destructive typhoons, floods and salinity intrusion (during the dry season). It mitigated the adverse impacts of nature by adjusting crop planting calendars. This entails, for rice, planting early for the dry season crop to avoid salinity intrusions, having a second dry season crop to beef up stock, and a third crop planted away from flood-prone areas during September and October when floods and powerful typhoons hit the country.
Here, the adoption of a new planting calendar will require massive efforts by the Department of Agriculture, National Irrigation Administration and local government units in terms of educating our farmers and delivering assistance at a much earlier date.
The ASF problem, meanwhile, could have been addressed with more intensive implementation of biosecurity measures: i.e. by creating more testing laboratories capable of producing immediate results and the imposition of proper and stricter zoning of affected areas (including island quarantines). Obviously, the much-ballyhooed Vietnamese-produced ASF vaccine did not work. Nobody has heard about it after the sale at an exorbitant price of the initial import volume.
My elders kept on reminding me of the adage “nasa Diyos ang awa; nasa tao ang gawa.” (From the Lord comes mercy; from man effort emanates). I do not think that blaming heaven for the fate of our agricultural sector will reverse its misfortune in the hands of men who refuse to tap our agricultural scientists and apply science in solving our problems.
fdadriano88@gmail.com
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