THE Philippines, the world’s biggest rice importer, wants to encourage private companies to grow the staple and has identified thousands of hectares in Mindanao to produce extra food, an official said.

“Underinvestment has prevented us from attaining self-sufficiency,” Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said in an interview. Output from nonstate companies would enable them to feed their own workers and sell the surplus, curbing imports, Yap said Thursday, without detailing potential incentives.

Rice-importing nations across Asia are seeking to increase production as prices rise to records, driven by export curbs and increased demand. The surge in rice has contributed to concern the world may face food shortages and heightened social unrest.

“The best incentive for a company is profits; will it be profitable for them?” Luz Lorenzo, an economist at ATR-Kim Eng Securities Inc., said. “Prices will stay high for a year or so.”

The benchmark export price of white rice from Thailand, the world’s biggest exporter, has more than tripled in the past year and touched as record $1,038 a metric ton last week, according to the Thai Rice Exporters Association. Rough-rice futures on the Chicago Board of Trade, which touched a record $25.07 per 100 pounds on April 24, were at $19.85 today.

The Department of Agriculture has identified between 6,000 and 10,000 hectares of unused land in Mindanao that nonstate companies may use for rice plantations, Yap said.

Global output of milled rice may rise to a record 445.3 million tons this year, according to a May 22 projection from the Food and Agriculture Organization. Malaysia, which, like the Philippines, imports rice to plug a deficit, announced plans this month to be self-sufficient in 10 years.

“We have the money but no food to buy,’’ Yap said. Philippine state tenders this year to buy hundreds of thousands of tons of rice to meet the supply deficit and build stockpiles have failed to attract sufficient offers.

The Philippine government was working with farmers, local governments and private companies to increase rough-rice output about 14 percent to 19.7 million tons by 2010 from this year’s projected total of 17.3 million, Yap said. It takes about 100 tons of rough rice to produce 65 tons of milled rice.

The 2010 target, if met, would enable the Philippines to meet 98 percent of local needs, Yap said, reiterating recent government projections for higher production.

A decade of budget deficits from 1998 prevented the government from investing in irrigation, funding seed subsidies for farmers, and building roads from farms to markets that could have helped achieve self-sufficiency in rice by now, Yap said. (Bloomberg)

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THE price of regular rice in the domestic market should be lower following the claims of the Department of Agriculture (DA) that the tight supply of rice has softened as reflected by the decline in the price of the produce in the international market, according to a nongovernment organization involved in the rice sector.

THE Philippines, the world’s biggest rice importer, wants to encourage private companies to grow the staple and has identified thousands of hectares in Mindanao to produce extra food, an official said.

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