Food for thought

A common ritual plays out daily in most Filipino households… the mother calls out, “O, kakain na tayo!” meaning that the rice, hot and steaming, is on the table and the family can now begin their meal.

To the Filipino, unless a meal includes rice, it is not a meal. Fastfood giant Jollibee knows this; that’s why it offers rice-meals. And apparently, this is something we share with our Asian neighbors. In Thailand, “kin kaow” literally means “to have a meal.” It also means “to eat rice.” In Mandarin, the word for food is the same word for rice.

Rice is more than our staple food; rice is part of our culture. And now there is a shortage of it.

Agriculture Secretary Yap suggests that an appropriate response is to conserve food. Conserve food? Most families can’t even serve enough food, let alone conserve it!

This problem will be here for a long time, so we must confront it. How to resuscitate unproductive land, preserve existing rice land or expand it while continuing to industrialize; and how to create the economies of scale we lost when farms shrank to five-hectare plots. The solutions have to be simple, bold, holistic, and for the long-term. The only politics wanted here is political will.

Some food for thought:

1. Most importantly, stop the conversion of lowlands into commercial estates. We can keep fueling our drive for industrialization by reclaiming land from the sea, the way countries like Holland have done it. Singapore’s warehousing hub, central to its trade and industry, is built on reclaimed land. We have our own too, in the Export Processing Zone of Cebu, and Manila’s largest reclaimed tract beyond Roxas Boulevard where the Senate, the PICC, the Marina and one of Asia’s biggest malls are located.

We should do more. But reclamation is a costly undertaking, so we need to offer better incentives to entice more engineering and construction companies. Right now, the sharing on reclamation projects is 60% - 40% in favor of the government. Why not reverse that offer and reduce taxes on the importation of dredging equipment, which is the heftiest investment on the part of the private company?

Having our factories nearer our ports will decongest our city streets of heavy delivery trucks and vans that carry raw materials or finished products, since they would no longer need to travel long distances inland. With the alarming rise in fuel cost and the state of traffic in key cities, this makes sense.

2. Other potential resources are water catchment areas in Nueva Ecija and Central Luzon, where hectares of abandoned open pits (tabun) can be dredged and revived to serve the irrigation needs of nearby ricelands.

These areas were never included in the land reform acquisition plan, nor was there any interest in putting them to good use. These abandoned tabun can be identified with the help of the MAROs and PAROs (Municipal and Provincial Agrarian Reform Officers) of DAR, who know their areas thoroughly. Then, let the NIA (National Irrigation Authority) get to work! We can expand and improve our irrigated lowlands; and dedicate them solely to food production, with rice as a priority.

3. Corporate farming: now is the time to do it. This is the only practical way of restoring economies of scale, making it worthwhile for large agricultural estates to produce more, providing constant employment and security to farm workers, and hopefully training them in more advanced methods of food production.

Let the business sector be part of the solution to the rice crisis.

Food companies have always run big farms successfully. But even non-food companies can be encouraged to extend their management expertise to run productive rice farms.

The rice produced can become part of the company’s employee benefits. If nothing is done, companies will eventually have to deal with the habitual tardiness of employees who have to line up for their share of NFA rice before coming to work. Instead of that, employees can enjoy the security of knowing they will bring home a sack of rice each month!

Well-run farms can produce enough rice to provide for their employees, and the rest can be sold to the NFA or commercially. Government can give incentives to these corporate ventures by giving tax holidays on the importation of farming equipment like tractors, threshers, dryers as well as fertilizers.

4. Keep building the infrastructure. Accelerate the construction of farm-to-market roads and bridges. The ultimate goal is to open up more agricultural lands for rice production and enable farmers in the farthest areas of our country to bring their produce to potential buyers.

Instead of being doled out as a monthly allowance, a more constructive way of using that P5 billion might be to employ the jobless in irrigation and road-building in the hinterlands. Simple hand tools can be used (as US Pres. Roosevelt did during the Depression, to allow people to earn). President GMA could replicate what her father did when he created the EEA (Emergency Employment Agency) during his term, providing jobs for unskilled workers and allowing them the dignity of earning through honest labor.

5. Expand our rice land. We have enough agricultural land… but the biggest agri-estates are dedicated to growing other kinds of more commercially viable products.

Why not mandate that 5-10% of these farms, depending on their size, be devoted to rice? Ex: if Hacienda Luisita had 6,000 hectares and 600 of that were planted to rice — the yield could feed an entire barangay for a year! (There’s divine justice in this, since agrarian reform was meant to be “the centerpiece” of Cory’s administration, in her own words.) And imagine doing that in Del Monte, Dole, or large banana and sugar plantations in the south… Call it the 10% Rule or some other monicker to give the concept an interesting handle.

These practical ideas are meant to be thought-starters — but let’s not chew on them for too long. The planning and the planting must begin now, if we are to harvest enough in the coming seasons. 

(Silverio J. Berenguer is a landowner representative in the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC), and Vice-Chairman of its Technical Working Group and Audit Management & Investigation Committee.)