The Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) said over the weekend that inclement weather may continue to be a major factor hindering the Philippines’ goal of achieving at least 95 percent rice sufficiency by 2028.

“In terms of production, we are doing everything we can to support our farmers. Our real enemy is when the weather is really bad,” Dr. Flordeliza Bordey, the director of the PhilRice Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund Program Management Office, told DAILY TRIBUNE.

She cited the El Niño dry spell, the flooding caused by La Niña, and the onslaught of extremely powerful typhoons as examples of weather-related factors.

Bordey assured the public that the Department of Agriculture is continuously working to mitigate the adverse effects of extreme weather, such as making strategic adjustments to their planting calendars.

“We also have external facts to look at. For example, the wars. The Russia-Ukraine war affected the supply chains of our inputs, like fertilizers, which became expensive. Those things that we don’t expect are the factors that can affect our target sufficiency,” she said.

She added that the increasing local demand is also crucial to achieving the 95-rice sufficiency goal by 2028.

“Supply is one side, but demand is also equally important to food sufficiency — the ballooning population. The growth of per capita consumption — we are looking at that. The wastages. That’s what we are balancing — that we are not only looking at the production side but also the demand side as well,” Bordey said.

“Maybe 10 years ago, we saw the per capita (consumption of) 120 kilograms per person per year, so the recent data we see seems to have reached 130 plus (kilograms),” she added.

The latest data from the DA showed that agricultural damage in the country due to the continuing onslaught of El Niño has reached P2.63 billion with a volume loss of 116,792 metric tons.

Bordey, however, said the affected farms reported to be El Niño-hit are not all palay crop areas.

“We have made some strategies to escape the problem of El Niño. In our distribution of rice seeds, we have really selected drought-tolerant varieties, the ones that are really suitable for rain-fed areas that have a lack of water,” she said.

Bordey added: “Another characteristic of the seeds we distributed was early-maturing varieties. This means that they are harvested faster so they can escape from the extremely hot weather.”