Manila sees no need to buy rice

The Philippines has ample rice stocks to cover damages from two strong typhoons that hit last week and has no urgent need for imports, a senior official said, as the agriculture department reviews whether damage estimates may have been inflated.
The typhoons damaged about 760,000 tonnes of unmilled rice yet to be harvested, mostly from the central Luzon region, equal to two weeks of national consumption and more than 11 percent of the expected rice harvest in the fourth quarter, Agriculture Under-secretary Antonio Fleta said. "We have two months worth of buffer stock, that will last up to the end of the month and we're expecting harvests from other parts of the country," he told Reuters.
"We're looking at the total buffer stock. If that goes down sharply, then we may start to consider buying," Fleta said. Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala said he has asked for a review of the damage estimates, which he said seemed high, and also wanted an assessment on whether some crops could be saved. "Now that the floods are receding, I have asked for a revalidation. I am very surprised with the reports, it seems to me to be a bit bloated," Alcala said in a local radio interview.
The government was working on providing weather-resistant seeds to farmers on a plant-now-pay-later programme, which could enable them to replant as early as next week. "The programme is for us to rebound at once. If they can still recover, then no area will be lost. It's only October, they can prepare their fields by second week of October, by late February they can harvest again," Alcala said. The state grain agency National Food Authority (NFA) was seeking authority from President Benigno Aquino to buy recovered rice from flood-soaked fields as a way of helping rice farmers from typhoon-hit provinces on the main Luzon island, he said.