No Basis For Fear Of A Rice Shortage

Our rice supply in the Philippines is a perennial source of worry because rice is the basic part of any Filipino meal. We import hundreds of thousands of tons of rice every year, mostly from Vietnam and Thailand, because, despite their best efforts, Filipino farmers cannot raise as much rice at the same low costs as Vietnamese and Thai farmers.

With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, panic-buying of rice and other food products has been reported at supermarkets. There is fear that many are hoarding rice supplies in the expectation that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is not ending anytime soon.

We recall that in 2018, market prices started rising in January, finally reaching a high of 6.7 percent inflation in September. It was stopped through a Rice Tariffication Law which ended all quantitative limitations on rice imports. The ensuing imports kept rice prices down and, because rice is a major part of every family’s marketing, market prices in general also went down.