SCIENCE CITY OF MUÑOZ, Nueva Ecija, Philippines — The Philippines registered the biggest improvement in rice production in Asia, according to recent world market data.

Citing records from the World Market and Trade of the United States Department of Agriculture, Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) executive director Eufemio Rasco Jr. told The STAR yesterday that the Philippines, which posted a 97-percent rice self-sufficiency status last year, registered a 4.04 percent average increase in milled rice production from 2010 to 2013.

The country produced 10.99 million metric tons of milled rice, up from 9.77 million metric tons produced in 2011.

With this development, the Philippines surpassed major rice exporters including China and India, which showed an improvement of only 1.55 and 3.77 percent in milled rice production, respectively.

Thailand, a leading rice exporter, only posted a .39 percent difference.

Tom Slayton, former editor of The Rice Trader and co-author of an article on how rice price crisis could be prevented from becoming a crisis of hunger, noted that the Philippines — a key importer in the world rice trade — posted zero imports during the last two years.

Bangladesh recorded a .25 difference in imports from 2012 to 2013, while China, although one of the largest rice producers in the world, registered a .10 difference.

Relating the world rice production data to regional rice industry integration in Asia, researchers Tin Htut Oo, Tim Maung Shwe and Larry Wong said the “increasing private sector efforts in integrating increasingly Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-wide modern farming and modern economic activities along agri-food supply chains and international trading networks could and should be harnessed and leveraged to complement ongoing government efforts toward food security in Asia.”

Rasco said PhilRice and the International Rice Research Institute based in Los Baños, Laguna recently signed a memorandum of agreement to collaborate on the conduct of researches and promotion of technologies.