The current typhoon season is wreaking havoc on Philippine agricultural products, including crops and livestock that could have been sold to local and foreign pet food producers.
This August, two tropical cyclones, named Luis and MayMay by the Philippine weather bureau, already destroyed some ₱135.3 million (US$2.2 million) in agricultural products planted on 4,516 hectares of farmland, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said. Damage and losses to agriculture were also aggravated by an enhanced southwest monsoon that has kept much of the Philippines drenched for weeks on end.
Natural calamities in the Philippines constantly strangle the supply of localized agricultural raw materials, effectively capping the country's potential to become a primary raw-ingredient exporter for the booming multibillion-dollar global pet food industry.
Feed corn shortfall deepens regional supply gap
In its Philippine Pet Food Market Forecast, research firm Statista said the Philippines is losing its window to fuel regional processing hubs due to systemic crop destruction. According to reports from the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), regional demand for feed corn is rising exponentially to support poultry, livestock and pet food manufacturing, but sequential climate shocks are preventing the Philippines from filling this supply gap.
A World Grain report on Philippine production shows the country's harvest of yellow corn, which serves as the foundational carbohydrate binder and energy source for standard dry pet food kibble, has continuously contracted — dropping to 8.27 million metric tons — specifically due to back-to-back typhoon-related losses hitting key production regions.
The report said the decline occurred exactly when total regional corn consumption for feed and pet food rose by 2.5%. Instead of exporting surpluses to Southeast Asian processing plants, the Philippines must aggressively import corn to meet its own animal food shortage.
The Department of Agriculture recorded an agricultural production loss of ₱57.8 billion in 2024 (about $943 million) due to El Niño, pests and diseases, volcanic activities and tropical cyclones. This year, with the Super El Niño, damages and losses are projected to be worse than ever.
Scenario modeling projects Philippine livestock losses of ₱7.6 billion to ₱9.9 billion (US$122 million to US$159 million) under severe conditions, while socioeconomic chain impacts, from consumer price inflation to import dependence, could amount to ₱159 billion to ₱205 billion (US$2.5 billion to US$3.3 billion).
The Philippines is currently ranked as the most vulnerable country to natural calamities in Southeast Asia and globally. According to the latest WorldRiskReport, the Philippines tops the global risk index due to its extreme exposure to overlapping typhoons, severe monsoon flooding and compounding climate shocks like El Niño and La Niña. This high level of disaster exposure severely fractures the broader Asia-Pacific (APAC) pet food industry, because Southeast Asia relies heavily on a highly integrated regional agricultural supply network.
