JAKARTA, Indonesia — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has secured assurances of rice exports from Vietnam and Cambodia, two of about a dozen countries that had benefited from the Masagana 99 program of his late father and namesake in the 1970s.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said on Thursday his country is working on a five-year agreement to export more rice to the Philippines to ensure food security for the latter.

Following a meeting with Marcos Jr. on the sidelines of the 43rd Association of Southeast Asian Nation Summit here, the Vietnamese leader told reporters about the nearly done deal between the two nations.

"Our two countries will conclude an inter-government agreement on rice trade so that our exports will ensure food security for the Philippines," Chinh said of his meeting with Mr. Marcos.

"We look forward to having a stable framework of cooperation on rice trade for a long period of at least (five) years," Chinh added.

In 2022, Vietnam stood as the world's third-largest rice exporter after India and Thailand, with the Philippines being its largest buyer.

Vietnam and Cambodia are seen to increase their respective shares of the worldwide rice trade after India halted its rice exports to bring down domestic prices.

As it had accounted for more than 40 percent of the global rice trade, India's move sent rice prices soaring further after spiking due to high global food inflation.

Marcos acknowledged Vietnam's readiness to increase its rice exports to the Philippines. "In Asia, food supply is very much determined by rice and the prices," he said.

"Very fruitful," was how the President described his talks with his Vietnamese counterpart.

Cambodia, too

In another bilateral meeting, Marcos touted Cambodia as another potential source of rice for Filipinos.

He said he sought Cambodia's support in exporting more rice to the Philippines to make up for harvests lost to several typhoons that hit the country.

Cambodia's Khmer Foods Company sold about 2,500 tons of rice to Filipino traders in May this year, the Philippines' first sizeable importation since the passage in 2019 of the Rice Tariffication Law.

The law liberalized the rice trade in the Philippines, allowing companies to import the commodity subject to compliance with phytosanitary requirements and import duties.

Cambodian officials said that by 2024, they want to have at least a 1-percent share of the imported rice market in the Philippines.

From the 1970s to the '80s, during the incumbency of President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., Vietnam and Cambodia sent representatives to the Philippines to learn how to increase rice yields under the Masagana 99 Program.

According to the International Rice Research Institute based in Laguna, other countries that benefitted from the rice productivity program were Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Masagana 99 aimed to increase rice production in the Philippines by providing farmers with high-yielding rice varieties, fertilizer, and pesticides.

IRRI provided technical assistance to the Philippine government as its major partner in the Masagana 99 Program.

Malaise

Senator Joseph Victor "JV" Ejercito told Daily Tribune that even before Marcos Sr. came to power, many countries had sent people to the Philippines to learn how to increase their agricultural production.

"I think it was the agricultural sector as a whole," Ejercito said in an interview on Tribune's digital show "Straight Talk," referring to the malaise that hit the industry for years, leading to the skyrocketing prices of rice, vegetables and, of late, onions, garlic and tomatoes."

"Sad to say that during the '50s and '60s, a lot of countries, our neighbors, came here — Thais, Indonesians and Vietnamese — to study," the senator said. "They studied here, and we were exporting back then."

"The irony of it is we are now importing from them. What happened in that span of 40 or 50 years? Why the reversal of roles?" Ejercito asked.

He noted that the children of farmers no longer want to till the land "because it's not rosy anymore, and the children want to have other careers."

Likewise, the problem of land conversion hounds the Philippines, with farmlands giving way to concrete jungles sprouting malls, condominiums, and corporate buildings, as government critics had warned.