Rice gained for a fifth day after Cyclone Nargis ruined crops in Burma, potentially forcing the country to seek imports, and the Philippines said it would buy additional supplies on the international market.

Rice for July delivery rose as much as 75 cents, or 3.5%, to $22.35 a 100 pounds on the Chicago Board of Trade. The contract, which touched a record last month, has gained as much as 8.3% since the close of trade on May 1. The tropical storm struck the main rice-growing area of Burma on May 3, killing as many as 100,000 people and worsening a global food crisis. The Philippines, the world’s biggest rice importer, will seek shipments “aggressively,” Agriculture Secretary Yap said yesterday.

“The crop damage in Myanmar has fueled concern over tight global supplies and prompted importers to rush for the grain,” the general manager of the research department at IDO Securities Co., Hiroyuki Kikukawa, said yesterday in Tokyo. “Any supply disruptions may stoke panic buying.”

Burma had been expected to export 600,000 metric tons of rice this year, including to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. The Rome-based United Nations agency had forecast world exports at 29.9 million tons.

Wheat, corn, and soybeans have all risen to records this year. Surging food costs raise the risk of hunger and malnutrition for 1 billion Asians, the president of the Asian Development Bank, Haruhiko Kuroda, said on May 5.