IN 1984, the government imported around 160,000 metric tons (MT) of rice. In the following years, this rose to more than 200,000 MT and reached almost 300,000 MT during the fateful year when the “People Power” revolution broke out in 1986. Those importation levels were a major source of embarrassment for the Marcos Sr. administration, which had boasted of attaining rice self-sufficiency through its “Green Revolution” program.
Fast forward to four decades later and nearly 5 million MT of rice was imported by the country last year. The United States Department of Agriculture, which runs a relatively reliable forecasting model on agricultural exports and imports, estimates that the Philippines will import more than 5 million MTs this year.
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