Author : Durna, Garyzalde

Summary : Rice-self sufficiency proved to be elusive for the Philippines for quite a long time now. A lot of strategies and resources have been implemented and spent to achieve self-sufficiency since rice being a staple food is a major food expenditure for ordinaryFilipinos. Rice accounts for 20% of food expenditures for an average household, which increases to 30% for households belonging to the bottom third of our society. This paper investigated and described the type of rice production technology adopted in the country; how land area, technology and population affected the program; and discussed the essence of DA's rice self-sufficiency program. Analysis focused more on the supply side why the country did not achieve rice self-sufficiency. Technology is the main driver of rice production growth in the Philippines for the past two to three decades based on trend analysis. The findings are also supported from other empirical works. The country is on average 89.48% rice self-sufficient based on the analysis but only 87.00% rice self-sufficient based on the data from the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS). Statistical analysis shows that yield of hybrid and inbred are 41.78% and 9.97% higher than the ordinary variety (base yield). In addition, hybrid is 28.92% superior compared with inbred. Likewise, irrigated is 54.58% advantageous than rainfed. Though, technologies resulted in a significant increase in rice production, BAS data revealed that for the last two to three decades, the country did not graduate from its status of being a rice net importing country into a rice net exporting country.