MACTAN - The Philippines is pushing for a global rice stockpile system aimed at preventing a replay of the price crisis in 2008 when rates soared to record levels, a top official said on Wednesday.

Abrupt weather changes had caused rice production in key exporter India to fall sharply and the world's biggest buyer, the Philippines to start securing its 2010 grain needs early.

"We feel that we are not very far off from possibly another rerun of 2008," Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap told delegates at an international rice conference in the central Cebu province.

Export curbs by producers including India and big purchases by countries such as typhoon-frequented Philippines helped push benchmark Thai rice trebling to a record $1,080 a ton in April last year. Prices have since more than halved amid thin demand for most part of 2009.

"When is the next perfect storm going to hit? We all know it's coming, may be we just have differences of opinion on exactly when it's going to happen, but we all know it's coming," Yap said.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said this month that rice stocks among the world's top exporters were likely to fall to less than 20 million tons in 2010 from more than 30 million tons this year as output suffers from weather changes.

"We cannot afford another rerun of 2008, that's why we have been calling for stockpiling on a global food reserve basis," said Yap. "When prices are crashing, producers can deposit their stocks in the food reserve and thereby halt any further decreases in prices."

"For consumers like us, we can always turn to the stockpile and buy rice at a certain price," he said.