By Giselle P. Jordan

TRADERS will cut down the country’s rice imports in March and April to help protect the interests of local farmers, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. told reporters over the weekend.

March and April are peak harvest months of the dry season cropping which stabilizes supply and prices till June. This period of high-yielding rice from Central Luzon and Cagayan Valley is crucial to local farmers, which government supports through lesser imports.

Tiu Laurel said rice importers associations have agreed with the Department of Agriculture to voluntarily limit their shipments of the staple to 150,000 metric tons (MT), or 37.5-percent lower than the usual 400,000 MT in March and April.

“It would not be an order [but] a voluntary measure among the industry and the DA,“ Tiu Laurel said. “The importers associations, based on our agreement, [would] send us a list on how much the [import] allocation would be for each member, so that’s what we’ll follow.“

Only half of the import volume for January and February has entered the country, Tiu Laurel noted.

Data from the DA showed that rice imports totaled 409,377.26 MT as of Feb. 5. Of these, 394,572.59 MT are regular rice, and the rest are labeled special rice.

Bimonthly auctions

Meanwhile, the National Food Authority (A) may do bimonthly auctions of its buffer rice stocks, administrator Larry Lacson said in a statement.

“The target is monthly, but the way I see its cycle …. the process … will be like every other month,“ Lacson explained.

Nonetheless, the A can auction majority of its aging but still good rice stocks at this pace, Lacson said while also admitting there had been challenges in previous auctions.

“It hasn’t been done for a long time, so even the private sector was not sure what to do, and some were not able to participate,“ he noted.

Bids for the third round of the auction will be accepted starting Feb. 20, with 750,000 bags of 50-kilogram rice to be on sale, with a “reasonable“ floor price of P22 to P25/kg.

Private sector interest in the auction had increased partly due to delay in the arrivals of rice imports, which had caused a slight increase in prices, Lacson said.

“Our aging stocks are not of poor quality. It’s good and fit for human consumption, and some are of really good quality,“ he pointed out.

There are suggestions to lower the minimum purchase of 3,000 50/kg bags instead of the current 5,000 50-kilogram bags, Laurel said, adding that the A continues to refine the guidelines and improve the conduct of the auction based on previous auctions. The goal, Lacson stressed, is to make the process as smooth as possible and allow more interested bidders to participate.

The DA is also considering holding the auction in regional offices instead of the national office since the latter is constrained by other pressing matters, Tiu Laurel said, adding that the next round of auctions would probably be in early April.

Published Date: February 16, 2026