President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. welcomed Tuesday a report on the impressive growth in rice production for the first six months of the year.

In a meeting in Malacanang with the Economic Development Group, Agriculture Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban cited a Philippine Statistics Authority report that confirmed that palay output from January to June rose to 9 million metric tons, from 8.7 million metric tons produced for the same period last year and in 2021.

The figure is even higher than what the Department of Agriculture earlier projected.

Marcos said a 3 percent-growth in production over the same period in 2022 is “excellent news”.

Marcos also said the higher production figure is a big boost to the country’s rice supply which is sufficient until the end of the year even with the impact of Super Typhoon Egay.

The PSA report is also higher than the PRISM (Philippine Rice Information System) estimate of 8.7 million metric tons (300,000 metric tons more) which the DA earlier used in its rice supply outlook.

Agriculture Undersecretary for Rice Industry Development Leocadio Sebastian, for his part, said the 9 million metric tons of palay is equivalent to 5.9 million metric tons milled rice (200,000 metric tons more than the PRISM estimate of 5.7 million metric tons), adding that 9 million metric tons palay production for the first half of 2023 is also higher than the production levels for the first half output of 2022 and 2021.

With the three percent production growth in the 1st semester, we can expect that, barring the occurrence of destructive typhoons, the production for 2023 could surpass 20 million metric tons, Sebastian declared.

The country's rice production will continue to grow considering the good palay price in the previous cropping and provision of various interventions by the DA (e.g., seeds, fertilizers, biofertilizers, soil ameliorants, and farm machinery extension support).

The recent production reports affirm that the country's current supply outlook for rice (carryover, production, imports) negates speculations of rice supply shortage.

As reported by the private sector toMarcos on Tuesday, more imported rice is arriving this month and September. In a special meeting, the private sector rice stakeholders also informed President Marcos that 300,000 metric tons of rice are coming in August.

Since January this year until the first week of August, 2.05 million metric tons of imported rice have already arrived in the country. Presidential News Desk