The Department of Agriculture has warned that rice imports to the Philippines may surge this year as palay production is expected to fall to its lowest level in a decade due to the effects of the conflict in the Middle East and the approaching El Niño weather phenomenon.
Agriculture Assistant Secretary and spokesperson Arnel de Mesa said palay output this year may drop to 18.8 million metric tons if prices of fertilizer and fuel remain elevated. That would make it the lowest unhusked rice production since 2016, when output was logged at 17.6 million MT.
The palay harvest reached 19.68 million MT in 2025. Before the Middle East crisis broke out, the DA was expecting production to hit a record high of 20.28 million MT.
But now, “there is a lot of pressure we will see in the next cropping cycle. We have three shocks that we can expect in the next cropping season,” De Mesa said.
He added that if oil prices continue to increase, it would affect land and crop preparation during the incoming rice planting season. “It’s expensive to spend on tractors, cultivators, and other agri-machineries.”
In addition, rising fertilizer prices and the El Niño could also drive local production down.
Given that outlook, De Mesa said there would be an additional need for imported rice to offset the potential drop in local rice production in 2026. The DA is projecting rice imports to increase to 4-4.8 million MT “to sustain the country’s 85-day buffer stock requirements by the end of the year.”
In a country where importation is the answer to every crisis, the government agencies involved have to act with the correct data and assumptions, because if any mistakes are made, an entire industry could be threatened. Rice farmers can only hope that the DA has learned from the experience of the SRA, which somehow imported too much sugar, resulting in a sugar industry that is currently in crisis. It would be disastrous if the rice industry were to be subjected to the same fate.
Aside from automatically turning to importation, adequate support also has to be made available for the rice sector, especially in the areas where they are projected to have difficulties. For this crop year, that would be the rising prices of fuel, fertilizer, and the threat of El Niño. Deploying the necessary support to shore up production during such challenging times must be a priority for the Department of Agriculture.
Importation may be one of the options for our beleaguered agriculture sector, but it is not the only option. Hopefully our government officials responsible for the affected sectors are not simply giving up on those other options.*
