National Food Authority (NFA) has projected that it would need to import some 580,050 metric tons (MT) of rice next year to make sure its stockpile is sufficient throughout 2018. NFA gave the estimate during his agency’s recent 2018 budget deliberation at the House of the Representatives, where he defended the need for a P7-billion subsidy for its buffer-stocking purposes. NFA projected rice importation by the government in 2018 is calculated based on the food agency’s mandated stockpile requirement and its target distribution next year. NFA is mandated to have 15 days inventory at any given time and 30 days at the start of July 1. At the same time, we want to fulfill our distribution target, so the 580,050 MT was based on our supply-and-demand.