“If you give me rice I’ll eat today; If you teach how to grow rice I’ll eat everyday” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Reducing hunger and poverty are the key United Nations Millenium Development Goals”, says the United Nation’s Agriculture Office. This is the reason the UN declared 2004 – the International Year of Rice. The preceding year, rice was the source of more than 500 calories per person per day for over 3 billion of humanity. Rice is one of the millennium crop integral to the realization of such goal.
DOUBLE-EDGED
Rice addresses hunger but, at the same time, it cuts deep like a knife when those who are hungry do not have access to it. Rice feeds almost half of the world and is a staple to almost a billion of humankind to survive.
Any attempt to improve rice as a crop is a major breakthrough in its evolution if its purpose is to address hunger otherwise, it becomes a stigma when it lands to the hands of the few and patented whose sole purpose is profit. In 2020, rice was liberalized in the Philippines via the Rice Tariffication Law it caused palay prices to plummet down and the only option of the government is to import rice instead proving adequate support to farmers to produce. It was directly felt by the almost 3 million rice farmers and producers and their families.
IMPORTATION AND UNCLEAR POLICIES
The top 5 rice importing countries are mainland China, United States of America, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. Altogether these 5 countries account for almost 25 percent or a quarter of global demand for imported rice. At one point, Philippines toppled all countries as the top rice importer in 2010. The National Social Weather Survey rated 12.2 percent of Filipino families, or an estimated 3.1 million, experienced involuntary hunger. Involuntary hunger means being hungry and not having anything to eat – at least once in the past three months.
Since the pandemic it was noted that rice production in the country was declining. An obvious impact of the RTL and the importation policy. Also, the government has increased private rice importers and removed NFA’s power to import rice. For critics, rice import is a good cover for smuggling which is not surprising that could come in second to the doubts hounding the sugar industry.
A STRATEGIC RICE DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Plausible is the new rice development plan of the International Rice Research Institute purely anchored on the UN’s MDG, summed up to:
Reduction of poverty through improved and diversified rice-based systems, rice production is sustainable and stable, has minimal negative environmental impact, and climate resilient, improve the health of poor rice consumers and rice farmers, provide equitable access to information and knowledge on rice and help develop the next generation of rice scientists.
According to the provincial agriculture office, Negros has 126,937 hectares planted to rice with 460,535 MT harvest with an average of 3.63 MT/hectare at P20/kilo of palay. Obviously, sugarcane occupies almost half (42 percent) of the island’s total agricultural land is planted to sugarcane. Negros Occidental alone has 62 percent of its agricultural area devoted solely to sugarcane.
This is a huge potential for rice development on a more strategic approach. We need to produce rice to eliminate hunger and poverty more than the objective to acquire profit. The power of rice is not its temporary low price and subsidies to those who cannot afford and hungry and importation or, we do not resort to the easy way of importation. Imperative is the timely, active, scaled up and consistent government intervention. The IRRI’s rice development agenda can be a better reference with appropriateness applied in our context.
When the price of rice is P55 to 60 per kilo your policy must be astutely clear, firmly declared and you do not mumble. Least, your P20 rice is contained in a plastic spoon not in a sealed bag.*
