Rice self-sufficiency

The recent news that five Asian nations – Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos – are seriously considering a rice cartel brings worries to some of our senators.

These countries are the major rice exporters in the region, whose irrigation needs are commonly served by the Mekong River. Thailand’s Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, is leading this initiative with the objective of gaining more control over international prices, in the same way that oil producing nations are controlling the world price of oil.

On the other hand, Vietnam has already announced as early as March that it would reduce rice exports by 22 percent to curb the rapidly accelerating inflation rates in the country, while Cambodia halted all rice exports.

Our senators have reason to worry considering the fact that once, we were self-sufficient in rice. But now, we are listed as the world’s top importer of milled rice for 2007, over Nigeria, Indonesia and Bangladesh. Statistics show that, over the past 20 years, we have lost nearly half of our irrigated land to rapid urban development. Coupled with the growth of population, which stands at 88 million, per the latest NSO statistics, higher prices and rice crisis loom ahead if no drastic action is taken.

Instead of worrying and being alarmed, our political leaders should get their minds together to come up with measures on how we can achieve self-sufficiency at the soonest possible time so that we do not have to be controlled by neighboring countries. Agriculture Secretary Yap is on the right track, coordinating closely with the home of the rice experts, the International Rice Research Institute based in Los Baños, Laguna, whose Director General Robert Ziegler warned that “Thailand’s move, in the wake of a threefold increase in the price of rice this year, could put the staple food beyond the reach of millions and millions of people.” This year’s 10 percent shortfall in production over consumption has been solved with 1.6 million tons of rice already secured by the Agriculture Department. But the current average production of 3.5 tons per hectare must be increased to 5 tons in order for us to be self-sufficient in rice in the coming years. Together with the Philippine Rice Research Institute, the IRRI has committed its resources and expertise to help our agriculture sector accelerate rice production and meet this target over the next three years.

A major cause for alarm is how climate change has been affecting food production and everything else in our environment. This will certainly raise obstacles to our goals of increasing our production of rice and food. Too much heat, lack of water for irrigation and the extreme problem of floods in some areas may just prove too tough for more rice to grow. In some provinces, farmers are beset with untreatable pests, while in Mindanao, vast tracts of arable land for rice cannot be utilized to grow rice because of the never-ending conflicts there. There are oil mines and huge gas deposits, as well, which, when tapped, could lead to more conflicts.

So far, our government is on the right track in undertaking measures to fill in our production shortages. What it needs to do is to help the farmers more, give them support to fight pests, improve irrigation facilities and subsidize production costs to encourage them to increase their harvest.