The Philippines intends to import less rice in 2023, an Agriculture executive said.
Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Leocadio Sebastian made the statement following the projection of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that the Philippines rice importation will hit 3.8 million metric tons (MMT) in the marketing year 2023-2024.
With the projection, the country is set to overtake China as the world's top importer of rice.
"We expect to import much less than USDA's 3.8 MMT projected rice import in 2023. This indicates that the volume we imported in 2022 was much more than the deficit," Sebastian said in a statement released by the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) on Thursday, Sept. 14.
The Agriculture official said they expect to import less rice as they focus on improving local production of the food staple.
"We also expect that with the intensified efforts to produce more rice locally, we will import less than the projected 3.8 MMT in 2024," he said.
"The uncertainty of depending on external sources for our staple and the high price of imported rice makes it imperative for us to produce more locally," he stressed.
According to the USDA projection, the country's rice importation volume for 2023-2024 is projected to surpass China's 3.5 MMT rice imports.