Philippine Food Imports Rise to Record

Philippine Food Imports From U.S. Rise to Record, USDA Unit Says

The Philippines now ranks as the 11th largest market for U.S. food and beverage exports and shipments to the country will rise to a record, a unit of the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a report.

Philippine Food Imports Forecasted To Rise

Exports to the Philippines are expected to rise 48 percent to a record $625 million in 2010, up from $423 million last year, according to the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service report. In 2009, the Asian country was the 14th largest market for U.S. food and beverage products, the agency said.

By Bloomberg


The Philippines Can be a Agriculture Exporter Again

The state of Philippine farming and agriculture is so bad that it now imports more food than it grows for its own population. The global food and rice crisis is at a very possible tipping point to disaster if something is not done very soon.

The Philippines has the potential to be a net exporter of food again in the future, but its going to take leadership from the government and the private sector together to win the battle and the war for food security.

Its all about leadership, and through leadership comes success. We challenge President Nonoy Aquino, and the Philippine political leadership to step up and help the Philippine agriculture industry, and help the Philippines become a net food exporter again instead of a net food importer.

Maybe it will take a severe food shortage, for the powers that be, to take the initiative in helping the Philippine farmers. There's nothing like hard times to move someone to action.


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Asian Development Bank Agribusiness Funding

Philippine agriculture department to seek ADB funding for agribusiness project.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) is planning to propose to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) a project that will build on the achievements of a $75-million initiative that seeks to increase farm productivity.

Agriculture Undersecretary for Operations Joel Rudinas said the envisioned project could be an offshoot of the Infrastructure for Rural Productivity Enhancement Sector (Infres) which will be closed in June next year. The project is funded by a loan from the multilateral financing institution.

“We will craft the proposal together with the ADB. It is possible that it [envisioned project] will have an agribusiness component,” said Rudinas in a telephone interview.

Just like Infres, he said the project will also target the reduction of poverty particularly in the rural areas.

Infres is a $150-million project that seeks to “increase agricultural productivity and profitability, decrease poverty incidence, and reduce the transportation costs for agricultural products.”

ADB extended a loan of $75 million. The rest of the amount required by the project came from the national government, local government units (LGUs) and target-beneficiaries.

As of Oct. 31, 2010, the loan utilization rate was pegged at 75 percent. On its web site, the ADB noted that its initial review indicated that the project’s “social and economic objective will be substantially met with the implementation of the selected subprojects.”

So far, 1,478 kilometers of rural roads have been rehabilitated or constructed under the project, while 1,454 hectares of farmlands have been served by irrigation systems. Also, the construction of 37 potable water systems were completed by 2008.

The ADB noted that out of 144 subproject packages, 79 have been completed of which 31 have been turned over to various LGUs.

The original closing date for the availment of the ADB loan was 2008, but it was extended for two years. The loan closing date was again extended to June 30, 2011.

On Wednesday, the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) disclosed that the ADB may extend a total of $2.3 billion in loans and grants to the Philippines in the next three years.

Neda Deputy Director General for Investment Programming Rolando G. Tungpalan said the ADB and the national government are still currently in the process of discussing the projects and programs that will be included in ADB’s Country Assistance Strategy.

By Business Mirror


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Flooding Hurting Philippine Rice Supply

Rice Supplies Tighten as Flooding Hurt Harvests in Thailand, Philippines

Thailand, the world’s biggest rice exporter, said that output will drop because of flooding, while the Philippines, the largest buyer, said its harvest may miss a target, potentially raising import demand. Futures surged.

Main-crop, rough-rice output may decline 3.9 percent to 22.34 million metric tons, while second-crop production may gain 0.9 percent to 8.33 million tons, according to a statement from Thailand’s Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives today. The total harvest may drop to 30.67 million tons from last year’s 31.5 million, according to Bloomberg calculations.

The Philippines may miss a rice-production goal of 16.24 million tons this year after flooding caused by typhoons, Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala told reporters today. The government will probably decide by the first week of December how much rice it will import, Alcala said.

The developments add to signs that wetter-than-usual weather is harming Southeast Asian rice harvests, contributing to a rally in prices and rising food costs. World food prices climbed to the highest level in more than two years in October on more expensive cereals, cooking oils and sugar, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization has said.

‘Crop Losses’

“Crop losses in Thailand raise concerns supplies will be tightened during November to January as floods will likely delay crop availability onto the market until February,” said Kiattisak Kanlayasirivat, a director at Novel Commodities SA’s Thai office, which trades about $600 million of rice a year.

Rough rice for January delivery gained for a sixth day today, advancing as much as 2 percent to $15.55 per 100 pounds on the Chicago Board of Trade. That’s the highest price since last December.

A La Nina weather event has brought heavier-than-usual rainfall to parts of Asia this year, damaging rice crops in the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. The rice crop in the U.S., the fourth-largest shipper, has also been hurt by dry weather, while Pakistan’s rice crop was hit by floods last year.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture cut its estimate for global milled rice output to 452.5 million tons on Oct. 8, 171,000 tons short of forecast demand. The global deficit, the first in four years, may be wider as typhoons and flooding hit Southeast Asia days after the USDA released that estimate.

Lower Forecast

Global milled output may be 450 million tons in the 2010- 2011 season, 10 million tons less than previously forecast, Samarendu Mohanty, a senior economist at the International Rice Research Institute, said today. The revision came after the floods in Southeast Asia, as well as drought in parts of China, Mohanty said in an interview.

The “supply situation is definitely very tight this year and next year,” Mohanty said from Hanoi, where he’s attending a conference. Other food prices have also risen, including wheat and corn, Mohanty said.

Thai rice-export prices, the benchmark for Asia, may advance to $550 a ton, said Kiattisak at Novel Commodities. The price of 100 percent grade-B white rice rose to $521 a ton on Nov. 3, the highest level since March 31. Prices are set weekly.

About 7.56 million rai (2.99 million acres) of rice lands - - about 11 percent of Thailand’s total -- are estimated to have been damaged in the floods, the ministry’s statement said. Thailand’s crop year runs from late October, with the main crop contributing most production.

The Thai floods spread to 51 provinces over the past month, leaving 165 dead and affecting at least 7.6 million residents, according to the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation. The La Nina will intensify around the end of the year, Thailand’s Meteorological Department has said.

Vietnam, the world’s second-largest rice exporter, will focus on keeping the amount of land devoted to the crop stable, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said at the conference in Hanoi.

The nation’s rice shipments totaled 5.7 million tons in the January-to-October period, a 5.8 percent increase from a year earlier, according to the General Statistics Office in Hanoi.

By Bloomberg


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Agriculture Business Mentoring

Agri-Business Entrepreneurship Pushed

Hyderabad India: The Philippine government can consider adopting a strategy which has the potential to increase the income of smallholder farmers and at the same time spur enterprising farmers to go into business.

This was suggested by Dr. William Dar, director-general of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat).

Icrisat itself has created a concept dubbed as the “agri-business incubation” (ABI). “We started [the ABI concept] eight years ago...to promote and commercialize the technologies [we developed] from our research and development initiatives,” Dar told visiting journalists and members of the Philippine Agricultural Journalists in a briefing here.

Dar, who is a former Philippine Agriculture secretary, noted that the current system of commercializing technology in the Philippines can still be improved.

“The usual way [in the Philippines] is to give the technology to an extension agency and then let the agency promote it. This system is not that efficient and effective,” he said.

Transferring technology, said Dar, should be done in a “business” fashion if it is to benefit small farmers as well as innovators.

In brief, the ABI concept emphasizes the importance of “mentoring.” Potential entrepreneurs are provided assistance from business planning to the actual marketing of the product. In agri-biotech ventures and innovative ventures in agri-business, ABI-Icrisat can provide technical consultancy.

Dar said Icrisat is willing to help the Philippine government implement the ABI concept should it decide to adopt it.

ABI-Icrisat has incubated more than 100 agri-business ventures in the past 8 years.

“As a result of that initial good experience, we have been funded by the Indian Council for Agricultural Research, a government agency, to put up a network of Indian agri-business innovatios,” said Dar.

The Icrisat chief disclosed that the institution received funding amounting to P23 million to assist 10 agri-business incubators based in universities and research and development institutions under the Indian Ministry of Agriculture.

“The major role of Icrisat is to ‘hand hold’ mentors and to transfer the technology of agri-business innovation,” said Dar. 

Recently, the ABI-Icrisat has joined hands with Information for Development of the World Bank Group, the government of Finland, and Nokia for agri-business incubation.

Finland said it is keen on providing financial support for agri-business through Icrisat.

By Business Mirror

Agriculture Business Mentoring

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Philippine Farmers Need Water Irrigation Badly

Lack of Irrigation Hampers RP Rice Production–NRFC

The lack of irrigated lands planted to rice is the key reason for the Philippines’ inability to catch up with neighboring countries like Vietnam in producing enough of the staple for Filipinos, the National Rice Farmers’ Council (NRFC) said.

Jaime Tadeo, president of NRFC, also said that in terms of productivity and technological know-how, Filipino farmers are at par with their Vietnamese and Thai counterparts.

“We have to put things in perspective. Vietnam has 7 to 8 million hectares of farmlands devoted to palay. Thailand devotes 9.9 to 10 million hectares to palay. Also, these two countries get [irrigation water] from the Mekong Delta,” said Tadeo in a telephone interview.

“The Philippines, which has a population of 94 million, has a crop area of only 3.1 million hectares [for palay],” Tadeo said.

Tadeo attributed this mainly to the government’s irrigation development policy for the last 10 years which failed to expand the areas planted to palay.

Also, the NRFC head noted that 85 percent of the watershed of irrigation systems in the country are already denuded.

A watershed is vital for irrigation systems as it collects rainfall and can store water in various amounts and for different periods.

Tadeo issued his statements in reaction to the pronouncement of President Aquino that the Philippines can learn a thing or two from Vietnam about the “efficient use of land and agricultural equipment.”

Sen. Francis Pangilinan said that what the Philippines can learn from Vietnam is the “proper implementation” of agricultural programs.

“The difference between Vietnam and the Philippines is the effective implementation of their policy. We taught them what they know, so the technology and knowledge are already at hand. What we need is a strong resolve to address agricultural issues that have been hounding us for decades,” said Pangilinan, who is the Senate chairman of the Committee on Agriculture.

The solon said that increasing the income of farmers and fisherfolk is key to ensuring food security in the Philippines.  

Dr. Rolando Dy, executive director of the University of Asia and the Pacific’s Center for Food and Agribusiness (UAP-CFA), said that among the policies that can help address rural poverty is the expansion of market-led diversification.

In a paper he wrote, Dy noted that over the last 25 years, the Philippines has only Cavendish banana and pineapples as significant new exports. Vietnam, he said, has been able to diversify its exports.

“Vietnam has a much longer list--rice, coffee, dory fish, cashew, pepper and shrimp,” he said.

Pangilinan said the Aquino administration now has a “golden opportunity” to lay down a clear vision for agriculture and fisheries modernization.  

“We cannot achieve a developed-nation status in the next 15 years unless we create more jobs and wealth in the agriculture and fisheries sector,” he said.

By Business Mirror


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