Philippines: agricultural gem

Rice has always been the staple food in every Filipino's meal. I recall a man jokingly say that his day isn't complete without eating rice. He says it makes him very "Filipino". Similarly, that's what my colleagues abroad tell me too; that they are still very Filipino because rice is always present in their meals.

There are over 3.01 million hectares of irrigated land in the Philippines - not enough to feed the Philippine population because a hectare only feeds 20 persons. That is why sometime within the years 2008 and 2009 we started to import rice from our neighboring countries such as Vietnam and Thailand.

It's funny because we used to be on top of the rice production game. The International Rice Research Institute at the University of the Philippines Los Banos was well attended by nationals of these neighboring countries. They came to learn our secret in terms of rice irrigation and tilling lands. Now, it seems that we have gone backward with our rice production. They have taken the throne of being the top exporting countries of rice. What makes it worse is that we import rice from them, too. Those whom we teach are now giving us lessons on survival.

I remember quite a few rice fields here in our municipality when I was a little girl. I would wave at the swaying palay as we passed by. As I grew the fields became less and buildings started to rise from the area. But we cannot totally blame the call of these developments because nature has been uncooperative for some time. If it is not the heat of the sun drying up the water on the field, it is the typhoon that washes away the entire harvest for the quarter.

Still, we have to be grateful for the fertile land given to us. The Philippines is an agricultural land, ideal for planting crops that could sustain a generation. The problem is we neglect this fact. We think that we are better off with sky-rise buildings and subdivided housing rather than a vast land for crops. Unlike other Southeast Asian countries, we are not landlocked. In fact, we are abundant with fertile soil and water from our nearby seas and rivers. We have forgotten our call to be an agricultural land.

In China, farming is considered as one of the richest professions one could go into. Farmers have their own houses in the countryside while tilling the lands that they own. The market people go after them rather the farmers going after markets for their products to be sold.

Now look at the Philippines. Our farmers do not even have enough money to feed their families. How much more to build a house? More so, the lands they toil for more than eight hours a day are not theirs but of the bourgeoisie families in the region.

If it was not for the injustice of the Spanish encomienda or even in the administrations after that, there would be no need to import rice. There would not have been tons of misdeclared rice at the Bureau of Customs. There would not have been any act of smuggling.

We all want to eat three meals a day and get the most out of the nutrition each meal brings. But until there is no realization of what kind of a country we are, then we are bound to keep on importing and smuggling until we get our hands tied by the authorities.

As of the moment, we cannot speak of a speedy concrete solution to the perennial problem of hunger in the country. What we can do is be on the farmers' side and support their cause in owning their own lands to till plus free education for their improvement.