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With the hybrid rice programme in the Philippines drowning in corruption allegations and failed harvests, here comes a surprise. Influential Filipino business maganate and chairman of the country's largest hybrid rice seed company, Henry Lim Bon Liong, says that his company SL Agritech Corp (SLAC) will be exporting hybrid rice seeds to Bangladesh this year.

"This is a historical breakthrough for the Philippines. We last exported rice 30 years ago," Bon Liong told the Manila Bulletin. He says that SLAC signed a memorandum of agreement on February 26, 2006 with the state-owned Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corp. for the shipment of 10,000 bags (at 20 kilos per bag) of hybrid rice seed-- enough for 10,000 hectares.

Bon Liong then goes on to tell the Manila Bulletin that the hybrid rice will improve rice yields in Bangladesh, which may lead someday to exports back to the Philippines. "The irony is if we don’t want to discipline ourselves, we might later import rice from Bangladesh," he said.

The hoopla about rice exports is quite an exaggeration. The country's hybrid rice programmes over the past decade were supposed to lead to national self-sufficiency in rice, but this year the Philippines is set to import at least one million MT of rice. Total output in 2005 was 14.6 million MT, down 0.6 percent from the previous year.

The real story here is that Bangladesh is turning into a dumping grounds for surpluses of hybrid rice seeds. See the February 16 entry below.

Philippines dumping surplus hybrid rice seeds in Bangladesh