Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said on Friday rice prices will likely decline starting next month.

Laurel at the sidelines of the Horticulture and Urban Agriculture Summit in Makati City said prices of rice in the international market declined for the past weeks.

“The reality is it’s declining up until last week at USD590 per ton but unfortunately, this week it went up to USD630 per ton,” he said.

Prices, however, are expected to go down again starting June.

“On average, I think prices should be lower by next month ng kunti pero ang prediction din namin by second half pababa ang presyo sana ng rice sa international market (On average, I think prices should be lower by next month a little bit, but our prediction is that by the second half, the price of rice in the international market will go down),” Laurel said.

“If world prices go down, definitely, local prices will go down also,” he added.

Meanwhile, Laurel is optimistic that palay production will go up in the next harvest season.

Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority earlier showed that palay production slightly fell to 4.68 million metric tons in the first quarter of the year from 4.77 million tons a year ago.

“El Niño really had its effect. Padating na yung ulan and sana walang malakas na bagyo. Kung walang malakas na bagyo, babawi tayo but of course darating ang La Niña. Sana hindi ganun kalakas then we should be okay (The rain is coming and hopefully, there won’t be a strong storm. If there is no strong typhoon, we will recover but of course La Niña will come. Hopefully it won’t be that strong, then we should be okay),” Laurel said. (PNA)