Henry Lim: Rice on Every Plate

Richard II had his Crusades, St. Paul his Road to Damascus experience. Not everyone gets the chance to re-invent oneself or devote one’s life to a cause; too much of what becomes our lives is dominated by the business of just getting on, making ends meet or attending to the humdrum of everyday life.

Henry Lim Bon Liong could have simply continued his life as eldest son of business pioneer Lim Seh Leng, having ascended to the position of chairman and CEO of the Sterling Paper Group of Companies. A successful business empire responsible for the notebooks, greeting cards and photo albums which dot the shelves of most quality bookstores, there was enough on his plate to keep him occupied. Expanding to distribution of imported merchandise such as Little Tykes, developing real estate (the Meridian industrial parks) and parlaying his business acumen to playing a role in the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (which already does its share of humanitarian projects, having funded the construction of more than 2,500 school buildings nationwide), Henry could very well have considered himself a busy and fulfilled man.

Perhaps the metaphor "on his plate" is in this case more than appropriate, for Henry found his crusade in the form of that dietary staple, rice. Hybrid rice, to be specific.

"You know, in 1997, if you asked me what was the price of rice in the palengke, I wouldn’t even know," Henry confesses. "But it was around that time that I began getting curious about the fact that, despite having such a big population–22 percent of the world’s–China was proclaiming that they were ready to export rice. Think about it: in China, less than seven percent of the total land area is arable, devoted to agricultural purposes, yet it’s supporting 22 percent of the world’s total population."

This curiosity led him to look further into the situation in China. "When I researched, I discovered that in 1949, when the communists took over, China was producing only 110 million metric tons of rice a year. Analysts then predicted that by the year 2000, China would be requiring at least 500 metric tons a year just to feed its projected population. They realized that no one would be able to provide that to them and that the present system in place would never allow that kind of yield."

Fast forward to the present and it’s a totally different picture.

"I have friends from China who are businessmen and they’re very proud to say that within the warehouses alone they have more than 500 million metric tons," he reveals. "In fact, they have so much rice they can’t even store some of the production, and are seeking export possibilities!"

He turns to the Philippine situation and laments, "When are we, here in the Philippines, going to have the President or a national leader proclaim that all local rice needs are more than satisfied by local production and that the country is now looking to export?"

To most, this query may simply be a starting point for discussion or debate, used as fodder to decry poor government initiatives or the perpetual miasma the Philippines always finds itself in.

"You may be talking about a long period of time to reach the present stage," he says of the China experience, "but it has been achieved." For Henry, the question became a quest, a passion that burned in him and compelled him to act, to find an answer.

The answer came in the person of Dr. Yuan Long Ping. "He’s the professor in hybrid rice technology who was the key to China’s unqualified success in rice production," Henry explains. "He averted famine during different points in China’s recent history and it’s said within China he enjoys the same stature and is as revered as Deng Xiao Ping. In fact, there’s a saying that goes, ‘If you want prosperity, you rely on Deng Xiao Ping, but if you want to eat rice, you rely on Yuan Long Ping.’ In some quarters, he’s considered a living national treasure!"

So there was Henry, a man with no agricultural background whatsoever, getting the opportunity to meet this famed professor. As fate would have it, Dr. Yuan Long Ping, a Ramon Magsaysay Awardee, took a yen–or is it yuan?–to the earnest Henry and his dream of making the Philippines self-sufficient in rice production.

"To this day I can’t explain why things clicked between the two of us," Henry relates. "There were moments when he treated me like some adopted son and I’m very proud to be able to say that. He told me that as far as he was concerned, his mission in China has already been accomplished. I checked around, and he was being courted by Latin America, Argentina, Brazil, Malaysia; all these countries were asking him to come to their respective countries and be consultant to their rice production programs. Given the contracts that were being dangled, it’s safe to say he’s worth at least $12 million!"

The solution isn’t a simple matter of planting rice, or even planting more rice. Nor is it simply transferring China’s rice technology over to the Philippines.

There are more than 190,000 varieties of rice–there are more than 10,000 varieties indigenous to the Philippines–sensitive to climate, soil and various other factors. The Philippines merely has three and a half million hectares of farmland (by comparison, Thailand has 10 million), and let’s not even talk about the poor ratio between irrigated and non-irrigated farmland.

Our national yield per hectare is around 2.9 metric tons, while Dr. Yuan Long Ping’s hybrid had China producing up to 17 metric tons per hectare. And last year, the venerable Dr. Yuan announced that a super super hybrid strain could now produce up to 25 metric tons per hectare. The strains produced in China can not just be planted here, and produce the same yields. A specific hybrid had to be created for the Philippines.

"We created a pilot farm and that’s where a team of twelve of the Doctor’s best men were at work," he explains. "We developed a strain we dubbed Gloria Rice and it’s now our mission to get the necessary government support to disseminate this hybrid."

A chance meeting recently with agriculture Secretary Cito Lorenzo augurs well for this project, having reached the attention of the people who can help make a difference. "But there’s still a lot of work to be done," the dapper businessman cautions.

Work that almost never came to pass. Remember the earlier allusion to St. Paul and his road to Damascus? Well, for Henry, it was the road back from Olongapo. Riding with his mother and younger brother over two years ago, they met a fatal car accident that claimed the lives of Henry’s mother, younger brother and the driver. Seriously hurt, Henry had broken ribs, punctured lungs, massive contusions and injuries. He subsequently suffered from severe vertigo.

"But I survived, and a month after the accident, when I got to the office, Dr. Sebastian (Henry’s lead Filipino academic on the rice project) tells me there’s a breakthrough in the parental line of a hybrid strain that can prosper under Philippine conditions."

Today, there are several such experimental farms, financed by Henry’s own resources. "These farms are devoted to the production of the hybrid seed for distribution to the farmers. This is tedious and labor intensive; I have farms in Laguna and as far south as Davao Oriental in Mindanao. To produce these seeds in mass quantities is a very complex process. We are talking about pollination, of achieving certain purities, developing the parental line, and these are all sensitive to weather and so on. One aspect of the process involves a ‘window’ of two hours a day, from 10 a.m. to 12 noon and if, for any reason, rain or too strong a wind comes into play, we lose the day and have to wait for the following day."

But the results have been encouraging. As shown to Sec. Lorenzo during one of his visits to the farm, whereas ordinarily, one would be lucky to get some 100 grains from a stalk, with the hybrid they are getting up to 300 grains per stalk. If the average yield per hectare was 2.9 metric tons, Henry confidently states that the hybrid they have developed will give up to 10 metric tons.

And all this without sacrificing taste; the hybrid is a long grain variety that should find easy acceptance with the general public.

As to how far this grand dream of Henry’s will take him and the country he’s devoted his efforts to, only time and politics will tell. It’s an inescapable fact that politics plays a part in whether this rice will be properly utilized. "I can only put time, money and effort in developing this hybrid strain," he points out. "Whether it becomes part of some national directive or program is beyond my power."

So you take these unlikely partners in a vision. One, a businessman who to this day is being questioned by his peers as to why he’s embarked on this quixotic project. "They laugh at me, saying that my tan doesn’t come from golf but from planting palay!"

And the other, a reticent Chinese professor, who delivers speeches at the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) with soil encrusted shoes and dirt under his collar.

"I once asked the Professor why, of all the countries asking for assistance, he chose to work with me here in the Philippines," he relates with pride and amusement. "He merely smiled and told me of how, during the Ming Dynasty, a Chinese trader brought back kamote from the Philippines. In fact, the Chinese word for kamote alludes to the Philippines as its origin. Well, during the famines that would ravage China, it’s written how the kamote helped the inhabitants of some areas survive. So for Dr. Yuan, this may be a way of giving something back."