The Department of Agriculture confirmed the government's plan to import rice as almost half of recorded damage to agriculture by Super Typhoon ''Egay'' affected rice farms.

"We will be scheduling the importation.... We already have something like 1.3 (MT) volume of applications that are already pending there," Agriculture Undersecretary Mercedita Sombilla said during a Palace briefing on Tuesday.

"I think the President (Ferdinand Marcos Jr.) will really have to do some discussions, consultations with the private sector so that, you know, for them to help us. I think we really need the help of the private sector in situations like these," she added.

In a video message after a meeting in the Palace earlier in the day, Marcos stressed that the government is looking at the agricultural inputs "to make sure that the price of rice will not increase too much".

"If we need to import, we will import. It is good that in our conversation earlier we saw that our importation of rice is decreasing but if there is an emergency like this we really need to look into the need to import," he said.

In the same briefing, Assistant Agriculture Secretary for Operations Arnel de Mesa said out of the P1.94 billion damage to agriculture due to ''Egay'', P950,000,000 million came from affected rice farms.

"The rice sector is about 950 million pesos; and for corn, that’s about 713 million pesos," he said.

Sombilla named three "global situations" that may affect the price of rice in the country.

"The major events that we are looking at: the withdrawal of Russia in the Black Sea Grain Initiative; the ban of India exports, although this is just for the non-basmati white rice which is about 25 percent of the total export of India of rice ? most of its export are really the basmati that goes to the United States and Europe; and, of course, the El Nino which is now pronounced as something that would really happen towards the end of the year and into the first quarter of 2024," she said.

"As of today... .our supply and demand is still sound ... But again, as the President is very much worried, we really have to discuss ways by which we could really mitigate, you know, further effect of these events that are now unfolding," she added.

Sombilla said the country still has 39 days of rice stock from the second quarter production and the government is expecting the "biggest rice production" by "September or October".

"We are prepared. The production for up to the second quarter, we have something like 39 days of stocks and then we’ll continue, you know, the DA has already prepositioned ways by which we could really increase production," she said.

"The biggest rice production will still come sometime, if not by the end of September, sometime in October so we will be beefing-up our supply and, of course, the usual supplies that we will be getting from imports," she added.

Sombilla also admitted that with the present situation, it is still impossible to achieve the 20 peso price of rice that was promised by Marcos during his campaign.

However, she also expressed optimism that it is still possible "over the long run".

"As of now, it seems that we cannot achieve it yet. But you know, in the long run, if our productivity improves and that is what DA is really aiming for, the government is aiming for, it is possible but with what is happening right now, fertilizer cost, fuel cost and El Nino, back-to-back typhoons we cannot see it in the short run," she said. Robina Asido/DMS