Philippines eyes bumper rice harvest next year

Philippines eyes bumper rice harvest next year

The Philippines aims to reap a record high harvest of at least 13 million tons of unmilled rice next year in a bid to reduce imports, officials said on Friday.

Agriculture Secretary Leonardo Montemayor said the government plans to intensify the distribution of higher yielding seeds to boost production of the country's staple from this year's estimated harvest of 12.85 million tons.

The Philippines, one of Asia's largest rice importers, bought 769,000 tons of rice overseas this year, including 104,000 tons bought under a soft loan agreement with the U.S. government.

The country, which has been importing rice since 1983 to fill an annual shortfall in local production, currently consumes around 24,000 tons of the grain per day.

Montemayor said the country's unmilled rice production this year was likely to hit 12.85 million tons, a slight reduction from an earlier estimate of 12.95 million tons because of the damage wrought by storm Lingling last week.

The Philippines produced 12.4 million tons of unmilled rice last year, thanks to good weather and also the distribution by the government of higher yielding seeds.

The Philippines has about 2.6 million hectares of rice-lands, of which half have access to irrigation facilities.

With the prospect of a bumper harvest next year, officials said they expected rice imports to be lower. --Reuters