The battle by the Philippines to become self-sufficient in rice will be won in the bedroom as much as on the farm.

The country consumes 30,000 tonnes of rice every day, with each Filipino eating 115 kilograms, or more than two sacks a year, according to Agriculture Secretary Domingo Panganiban.

"Except for a brief period in the 70s, the last time this nation produced enough rice to feed itself was in 1903 - the year the Wright brothers invented the airplane," he told a group of farmers last month.

Fluctuating rains, lack of funds and a rapidly rising population have made the Philippines one of the world's largest rice importers.

The country bought 1.8 million tonnes, or 16 percent of its requirement, last year and is expected to buy 1.6 million tonnes this year.

If the Philippines wants to meet its own rice needs, one of the best ways, analysts say, is to put a brake on its population - now at 85 million and growing at around 1.95 percent per year.

The National Statistics Office sees the number of Filipinos rising to nearly 142 million by 2040, even if the annual growth rate slows to around 1 percent in 2030-40.

"Population growth is the wild card. It has to be reduced to 1.4 to 1.5 percent," said Pablito Villegas, chief executive of the agricultural think-tank, Meganomics Specialists International.

"In the short run, maybe it's cheaper to import. But in the long term ... we have to aim for sustainable food security."

The task of slowing one of Asia's fastest birth rates is complicated by the country's powerful Roman Catholic church, which frowns on the use of artificial contraception.

The Philippines is predominantly Catholic and the government, anxious not to lose the support of influential bishops, has made no serious attempt to tackle the population issue, preferring to promote natural family planning.

The Philippines also has to battle nature.

Experts from the Philippine Rice Research Institute and IRRI, the International Rice Research Institute, say the main obstacles to rice sufficiency are geographic and implacable.

"The fundamental factors behind Philippine rice imports - relatively small amounts of land and lack of river deltas - can't be changed," according to the book Why Does the Philippines Import Rice? released by the two institutes.

Agriculture department data show the country was able to raise its rice output in the last decade, except in 1998 when the harvest was hit by drought.

The country's unmilled rice output rose 38.5 percent last year to 14.6 million tonnes from 10.541 tonnes in 1995. Yet supply was unable to cope with demand, forcing imports.

Panganiban, the agriculture secretary, has said he expects rice output to level off with demand by expanding irrigation facilities and boosting production of white corn, a rice alternative.

The Philippines is banking on a repeat of the so-called Green Revolution of the late 1970s when irrigation facilities were improved, better-yielding rice varieties were developed and more fertilizers were used by farmers to boost harvests. During this time, the Philippines was able to feed itself and even exported small quantities.

But researchers say nearly all farmers have adopted the Green Revolution technology, with the real issue being mother nature.

IRRI is doing more research on genetically modified rice and new drought and flood-resistant varieties to combat the threat of global warming.

But it will be years before the new types of rice are available to farmers - as the population continues to grow.