The Philippines, the world’s top rice importer, is seen to import less rice next year but it’s not going to be intentional. There’s just simply not enough rice to import from the global market.

The latest Global Agricultural Information Network (GAIN) report of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) showed that from 3.3 million metric tons (MT) of rice, the Philippines may actually import just around 3 million MT of the staple in 2021.

This is due to the “reduced exportable supplies” from Thailand and Vietnam, which are the top two suppliers of imported rice to the Philippines.

From 9 million MT of rice, Thailand’s 2021 rice exports is now seen at 8.5 million MT due to reduced production forecast, while Vietnam may only export 6.3 million  MT of rice from 6.4 million MT with a smaller production.

“The exporter with the sharpest decline is Thailand. Exportable supplies have been limited by a poor Thai crop which was affected by drought. Thai prices have been consistently higher than its regional competitors,” the GAIN report said.

For this year, Thailand is forecast to export only 6.5 million MT, its lowest since 1998.

Nevertheless, the Philippines will still remain as the world’s top rice importer for this year and next year based on USDA’s new forecast.

For this year, the USDA is expecting the country’s rice imports to be around 2.5 million MT.

This was earlier disputed by a local agriculture lobby group, Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG), which claimed the Philippines may actually have way lower rice imports for the entire 2020 due to global trade disruptions brought about by COVID-19 pandemic.

The other day, Agriculture Secretary William Dar has assured that the country will have enough rice for the rest of the year despite the implementation of stricter lockdown measures and other global developments such as the flooding in China, which is feared to disrupt the global rice market.

For this month alone, Dar said the Philippines has at least 53 days of rice inventory.

"This will increase in the coming months, as we expect harvest from the wet season palay cropping, starting late September," Dar said.

He then said that “barring adverse typhoons and natural disasters in the remaining months of the year”, the Philippines will still achieve a record palay output this year of 20.34 million MT, which is 8 percent higher than the 2019 production.