By providing an email address. I agree to the Terms of Use and acknowledge that I have read the Privacy Policy.
SINGAPORE — The expected onset of the El Niño climate phenomenon later this year and the spike in prices of fertilizer caused by the war in the Middle East are raising the possibility that farmers in the Philippines and the rest of Asia will produce less rice this year and the next. Some planters may even be forced to stop rice farming altogether because of the surge in production costs.
Yvonne Pinto, director general of the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute, told the Inquirer in an interview here on the sidelines of the Philanthropy Asia Summit 2026 that in the region, a number of farmers have been applying less fertilizer because the input has become more expensive.
Prices have risen by some 33 percent since Iran fought back against the joint attack by the United States and Iran in late February by controlling the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a third of key fertilizer chemicals pass.
READ: Debt, peso slide and looming Super El Niño put PH food security at risk
