IRRI fine-tuning tool to assess costs of rice self-sufficiency goal

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December 7, 2025 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines — The Los Baños-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is refining a modelling tool that will help policy-makers and rice industry stakeholders chart the future of the country’s rice industry amid growing demand for the staple.

IRRI’s Shyam Basnet told The STAR that they are working on improving the international agency’s modeling tool that projects the costs of achieving rice self-sufficiency for the country.

One of the measures being considered is the inclusion of the economic costs of attaining the elusive dream of the Philippines to produce all or nearly all of its rice requirement locally.

The modeling tool created by IRRI presents the various pathways on how the country will achieve rice self-sufficiency in the context of food security and environmental costs.

The Excel-based tool takes into account various factors including demand, population, incomes, animal feed needs, yields, trade, land and climate impact.

The model provides three paths for the country’s rice situation by 2050: business-as-usual, national target and ambitious.

In the first scenario, rice imports will remain at around 15 percent under current diets and productivity levels. This will require little additional land for production but would result in minimal progress in achieving self-sufficiency.

The national target path scenario sees imports being reduced to 2.6 percent following national diet recommendations and productivity targets. In this case, the self-sufficiency goal is achieved by the government but at the cost of extensively expanding rice production areas, which Basnet noted would increase risks to biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions.

The ambitious path scenario presents a situation wherein the country achieved the rice self-sufficiency goal but in a healthier way. The path sees the country relying on slightly less rice-heavy diets with higher rice productivity. This scenario, according to IRRI, would require lower land use, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and water demand.

The tool was developed by Basnet as a catalyst to engage with stakeholders on how to foresee the future of the country’s rice production based on various socioeconomic scenarios.

In particular, Basnet wanted to highlight the environmental costs that achieving rice self-sufficiency would entail for the country.

Basnet is currently working on incorporating IRRI’s in-house economic model - the Global Rice Model - to assess how changes in the Philippines’ rice market by 2050 will affect future global rice prices.

He explained that changing Filipinos’ diet - lessening consumption of rice - would yield multiple benefits for the country. One, it will lessen the pressure on rice producers to produce more. Second, it may lead to proper land utilization, especially for livestock production to meet other nutritional requirements of Filipinos.

“Sometimes, we talk about increasing productivity, production and we consciously put pressure on our [rice] producers. And that comes at a cost,” he said.

“Our consumption patterns must be diversified. It is very important to have different types of diet to meet our nutritional needs,” he added.

The IRRI expert pointed out that the ultimate goal is to have a sustainable pathway for the country’s rice industry. This pathway, Basnet explained, sees the country achieving a comfortable level of rice self-sufficiency while meeting its other nutritional requirements.

“We have to see what are the trade-offs and synergies between the public and the private sector. The challenge is to achieve that rice sufficiency while attaining the government’s commitments in terms of biodiversity and reforestation,” he said.

“We must balance all these things,” he added.

Meanwhile, Alisher Mirzabaev, senior scientist for policy analysis and climate change at IRRI, expects global rice prices to remain soft because of abundant world supply.

In the case of the Philippines, Mirzabaev pointed out that rice prices would not spike despite the extension of the temporary import ban until the end of the year due to ample domestic stocks.

“There is a lot of stocks in the Philippines with the good harvest coming in and there was already pre-loading of imports even before the ban [started in September],” Mirzabaev told The STAR.

The IRRI expert noted that rice exporting-countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar and Pakistan continue to cut their prices to maintain their market share in the global rice market.

“Warehouses are full with the new harvests so they have to release the stocks in their warehouses. The international market is very conducive for buyers,” Mirzabaev said.

He cautioned that the global rice market volatilities experienced in the past two years would become more frequent and cyclical.

Global rice prices skyrocketed two years ago after India halted its exports but quotations plunged this year with the lifting of the Indian export ban coupled with bumper harvests across rice-producing nations.

“As we move forward, the uncertainties and volatilities will never go away. Bumper harvests cause prices to fall, which will discourage planting and lead to thinner stocks and therefore higher prices again,” he said.

“We are living in very interesting times,” Mirzabaev added.