Philippines clear corn supply gap
The Philippine National Food Authority will bid out a contract to import 80,000 metric tonnes of corn, completing the total shipments of 200,000 mt required to fill in a supply shortage for the year.
The government would push through with the last batch of corn imports before
June to meet a critical supply gap, NFA Deputy Administrator Ludivico Jarina
said in the Manila Standard. The main corn harvest is expected starting on July
yet.
Only about 120,000 mt of corn imports of the total 200,000 mt were subscribed
during a bidding April 11 at the NFA office in Quezon City.
Toepfer bagged the contract to import 60,000 mt while Cargill won the other
half. Other qualified bidders were Bunge, Romar Commodities, Louis Dreyfuss and
Paritas. Toepfer and Cargill plan to obtain the
corn supply from an Argentine source.
Double volume allowed
The Department of Agriculture has allowed up to
400,000 mt of corn imports this year in two separate tranches of 200,000 mt each
based on reports of a production of shortfall of 1.8 million mt this year.
The government has committed to shoulder the import duties to make domestic
corn prices competitive. The feed milling sector has estimated that yellow corn
production this year will reach 3.88 million tonnes, or around 60% of total corn
output, against the feeds requirement of about 5.11 mt.
With post-harvest losses of around 15%, the available yellow corn for feeds
will reach around 3.3 million mt, or a shortfall of 1.8 million mt, said Ric
Pinca, vice president of Philippine Association of Feed Millers.
Join 26,000+ subscribers
Subscribe to our newsletter to stay updated about all the need-to-know content in the feed sector, three times a week.
