THE national rice inventory rose 45.3% month on month to 2.34 million metric tons (MMT) as of April 1, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported.
Year on year, inventory rose 26.2%.
As of April 1, 50.2% of the rice inventory was held by households, 35.1% by the commercial sector, and 14.8% by the National Food Authority (NFA).
Month on month, rice stocks held by the commercial sector, households, and NFA rose 55.5%, 49.8%, and 15.5%, respectively, the PSA said.
Stocks held by NFA warehouses rose 733.6% year on year, it added.
The NFA has been touting its increased reserves, which hit 10.1 million bags of palay and 1.2 million bags of milled rice in late April.
The volumes were the highest since 2020 and sufficient to cover 10 days’ consumption.
The government has stepped up efforts to lower prices of the food staple ahead of the midterm elections.
On May 1, a P20-per-kilo rice program subsidized by both the local and national governments rolled out in Cebu.
The Department of Agriculture has since suspended the pilot program to comply with the May 2-12 ban on the distribution of government aid during election season.
The PSA last week reported that at the national level, regular milled rice averaged P44.44 per kilo at retail during the April 15-17 monitoring period.
This was lower than its average retail price on April 1-5 of P44.92 per kilo and P46.02 on March 15-17.
Meanwhile, the PSA said in a separate report that palay production rose 0.3% year on year to 4.70 MMT in the three months to March.
Central Luzon accounted for 17.2% or 808.60 thousand MT of total palay production during the period. This was followed by the Cagayan Valley with 640.43 thousand MT (13.6%) and the Western Visayas with 549.51 thousand MT (11.7%).
The three regions accounted for 42.5% of national palay production during the quarter.
The palay harvest area in the three months to March fell 2.3% year on year to 1.15 million hectares. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza