Gov’t under pressure to import rice

Still reeling from the devastation of Tropical Storm “Ondoy” and Typhoon “Pepeng,” the Philippines is gearing up to import more rice to avert a potential shortage in the first half of 2010 after the storms lashed many of the country’s rice-producing areas during the last two weeks. A rice shortage is the last thing the government needs as it faces general election in May 2010, to avoid a political disaster.

The National Food Authority has said the government would start its 2010 rice import process after a government panel determines the amount, possibly this week. BBC News also quoted President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as saying food imports need to be organized as soon as possible. The Department of Agriculture said total crop damage, mostly rice, due to the typhoons has reached P7.63 billion.

“I am not worried about a rice shortage for 2009 because we have enough buffer stock. But, we’re watching the impact for the first and second quarters of 2010,” Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said. “If needed, we will import rice.”

It is unclear how much rice would be imported and from where and at what price. These would be determined by the assessment of the government panel of the grain shortfall and the damaged inflicted on the rice lands by the typhoons. During the last quarter of 2008 the government signed import contracts with Vietnam and Thailand, two of its traditional suppliers of rice. The Philippines imported 1.775 million tons of milled rice in 2009, lower than a record 2.3 million tons in 2008.

Yap said the country, which imports 10 percent of its annual rice needs, has enough stocks until the end of year. Ondoy had destroyed 285,000 tons of paddy rice, equivalent to five days’ amount of consumption. Yap said the government had a buffer stock of 30 to 35 days at present.

Tentative estimates of the typhoon damage on rice farms put them at P5.5 billion. The typhoons have trumped the government’s rice production targets. It had hoped to harvest a record 17.45 million tons of rice for all of 2009, with first-half output at 7.38 million tons. Last week, the NFA said its rice stocks stood at 1.26 million tons, good for 36 days’ consumption.

During a budget hearing last week, Yap said that the country’s estimated 3 to 4 percent growth in rice production for 2009 might be halved because of the damage to agriculture.

On Monday, Yap gave more data on the extent of the crops and agricultural infrastructure. He estimated the damage to exceed P6 billion, broken down to P5.5 billion due to Ondoy and P550 million due to Pepeng. Damage to agriculture infrastructure was estimated at P1 billion, mostly irrigation systems. He said 200,000 metric tons of rice and 2,000 to 3,000 metric tons of vegetables were destroyed, along with 10,000 metric tons of corn. But he understated the impact of the damage, saying the impact of the losses on food security is “negligible” because the country has adequate stocks.

He did not say that the adequacy of the stocks is underpinned by rice imports and that the typhoons set back the goal of food security through self-sufficiency in food production.

Yap was speaking of the adequacy of the rice buffer stocks up to the end of the year but said very little about the rice supply during the first and second quarters of 2010, and the rest of next year.

This is hardly reassuring. The Arroyo administration should be worried about the adequacy of the rice stocks during the first two quarters of 2010 because that period is extremely critical. Its candidates already risk being buried under an avalanche of public discontent over its response to the distribution of relief to flooding victims. The shattered irrigation systems, the devastated paddy fields cannot be made to produce grain in six months before the May elections, which means that the government will have to embark on a crash program of massive rice importation to make up for the grain deficit.

The administration cannot be smug about a buffer stock good up to December 2009. It is under heavy pressure to negotiate now the purchase of rice stocks from its usual sources, and it is uncertain if Thailand, Vietnam and the US can immediately supply the emergency requirements of the Philippines. The exhaustion of the buffer stock by the end of 2009 has pushed the government to panic rice procurement.

By the start of the new year, public concerns over the adequacy of rich stocks will start building up. The party infrastructure of the merged Lakas-CMD and Kampi faces the threat of obliteration in the May election, not because the opposition parties will present a unified front (unity is far from certain) but because the administration will bear the brunt of public unrest.

The administration’s megacoalition is due for a big crash. Public dissatisfaction over the government’s response to demands for relief from typhoon and flooding victims is certain to rise. The latest Social Weather Stations survey conducted Sept. 18 to 21 already showed that dissatisfaction with President Arroyo’s performance has intensified. The survey found that her net satisfaction rating fell to -38 (23 percent satisfied against 62 percent dissatisfied), from -31 in July. The survey found that the President’s overall satisfaction rating was pulled down by worsening dissatisfaction in the rest of Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao, while high dissatisfaction continued in Metro Manila. Although the third quarter survey was conducted before Ondoy, dissatisfaction in Metro Manila, the center of the flooding, could only have heightened since then.

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