What if there's no more rice to import - I

The “El Niño” phenomenon has just set in which roughly runs through the summer months before the rainy season makes its toll sometime in late June, predicts the PAG-ASA.

The plight of the Isabela farmers shown on tv featured wide cracks of dried up ricebeds, with still lush green young rice plants only to perish soon in thirst, with no more water to nourish the second rice granary next to Central Luzon. In other areas where second rice cropping is in patches, irrigation conduits have also dried up. Unless the cloud seeding attempts which haven’t hitherto induced rainfall, makes a turn-around for the better, the summer crops are failures.

Planting rice is usually once a year, despite the shorter term varieties which enables planting to be done twice a year and, perhaps, thrice if water the year-round be available. Time was when the main rice granary in Central Luzon, plus ample harvests in Isabela, Panay, Bicol, and elsewhere yielded sufficient stocks without being dependent on Asian neighbors.

Also time was when the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) of UP Los Baños’ series of experiments on short-term and high-yielding varieties catered to students from Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Japan, etc. on rice agronomy. The bitter irony is the RP now is the leading rice importer from its former students in rice culture.

Main drawbacks are the 20 or so typhoons annually ravaging Luzon and outlying islands destroying rice, corn, assorted vegetables and fruit trees, as well as fishponds.

Poor Juan dela Cruz is now the topmost rice importer of the world, the recent imported bulk coming from Vietnam and Pakistan. The Philippines ought to be a rice exporter considering its wide terrain suited to rice and other agri-cultivation, fertile soil and water potential sources, ideal climate for wet and dry seasons, easy access to inter-island transport, and expertise in rice agronomy.

What happens when there be acute rice shortage to feed the Filipinos, say, two years, five years, or ten years hence when the population shall have exploded beyond control and, the Asian neighbor-rice exporters now could no longer export to the Philippines? If Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, et al. shall also have overpopulation, or they be ravaged by the vagaries of climate change on their economy, or for any other reason, what happens to the hungry Filipinos?

For so long no Filipino political leaders adopted the platform or commitment as national policy and highest priority, the full development of agriculture. But many are still obsessed for the Philippines to be an advanced industrialized country, highly developed in overall economy. God must have meant for the Filipinos to prioritize the agri-economy as topmost in endowing us with natural wealth, and other aspects of the economy to follow.

   Undoubtedly, since creation of the universe and man, the natural law dictates that for man to exist and live, next to air and water, the sequence of basic necessities is food, clothing, and shelter. Hence, early mankind in all climes, including indigenous or primitive Pinoys, first eked out food from crude hunting and fishing, gathering wild fruits and root crops, planting or sowing seeds, wore leaves or tree barks for bare clothing, and lived in caves or makeshift lean-tos.

Even a cursory review of early world history reveals that most countries had started out, and have sustained their growth and development with the agricultural economy. Highly developed and industrialized countries now have not taken for granted their dependence on the soil through scientific and mechanized agronomy. Take the rice exporting Asian states now, why are they rice exporters while the Philippines has for decades now been a rice importer?

With malice towards none, are Filipinos that queer, unique, reverse-oriented, bull-headed, and an indolent nation that even Jose Rizal had lampooned in his essay “The Indolence of the Filipinos”?

(To be continued)

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