Aided by constant rains as with the intensified campaign on using better seed varieties, the country is projected to see a record rice harvest of about 19.4 million metric tons for 2017, according to Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol.
The record harvest means the Philippines will need just 600,000 metric tons more to reach its self-sufficiency target of 20-million metric tons per year.
Until recently, the country imported about 1.8-million metric tons of rice.
The shortage fell to 500,000 metric tons of late, with the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) noting rice production has grown by 14.7 percent in the third quarter of this year.
Reports from Department of Agriculture (DA) regional offices indicate the fourth quarter harvest might fare even better given how typhoons have been bringing in much needed rains, doubling the usual crop yield.
Pinol said the rice sector’s improved performance is also attributed to local farmer’s increased willingness to adapt to modern technology, including the use of hybrid seeds as developed by private agricultural companies in collaboration with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice).
According to a report, Nueva Ecija rice farmers using hybrid seeds posted harvests of 10-metric tons, higher than the national average of 4.38-metric tons per hectare per harvest.
Currently, though, only 360,000 out of a possible 4.9-million hectares are planted with hybrid seeds.
The DA has since set a target of one million hectares to be planted with hybrid seeds by 2020 with a modest production goal of six metric tons per hectare.
This is expected to result in an additional annual production of four million metric tons per harvest per year.