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This is a period in our history that makes this cliché
relevant—there is a sliver of light after the dark clouds.
The current rice crisis is indeed a big problem.
It is global in scope, the short supply intersecting with the surge
in the prices of all known basic food commodities. Greed (as in
traders hedging on rice, corn, soya, etc, in lieu of the traditional
stocks and bonds), as usual, has worsened things. Just imagine
Gordon Gekko manipulating commodity prices.
Pin the Asian map on the wall and these are the
facts you get.
China and India have scaled down on their rice
production. Former paddies are now IT parks in India. In China,
these are factory sites and housing areas, those drab tenements that
can house tens of thousand of people.
India recently ordered a halt to rice exports.
China has no surplus to ship overseas.
Bangladesh ’s farming areas had been ravaged
by killer floods, the swaths of destruction vast. It was drought
that savaged the rice areas of Australia, the impact worse than the
Bangladesh floods.
Rice is a sacred crop to the Japanese. Rice
farmers are held worthier than politicians and stock brokers. (Here
they are ranked as dalits, the untouchables). I don’t think Japan
can ever be a player in the rice trading mainstream.
Vietnam and Thailand are the only viable rice
exporters left. As such, they now sell at high prices. The market
belongs to the rice exporters. Thailand, with its seven million
hectares of prime irrigated rice areas, is king. The prince of the
hill is Vietnam, with more than five million hectares of irrigated
lands devoted to rice.
From the usual $200 to $300 per metric ton more
than a year ago, premium rice prices have surged to almost $1,000
per metric ton. As Sen. Edgardo J. Angara, chairman of the Senate
committee on agriculture, had said, “ The era of cheap rice is
over.”
Should the Philippines, which needs 2.2 million
metric tons of rice for domestic consumption this year plus a little
for buffer stock, despair over this Asian/global rice supply gloom?
From the farmers’ point of view, the answer is
no. There is no need for knee-jerk reactions and fanning a state of
panic.
Boosting rice production is a short-term thing.
In a 120-day rice production cycle, things can be reversed. A farmer
can even confidently paraphrase Bakunin: Give me the inputs and the
wherewithal and I will turn things for the better. Because he can.
With hybrid seeds, enough irrigation and just a
wee bit of money for production loan, Filipino farmers can produce
anywhere from 150 sacks of palay per hectare to 200. And provide the
final solution to our rice supply worries. Even with my farming
capabilities weighed down by diabetes and two angioplasties, I can
do this myself.
Providing all the three requirements does not
need extra effort. The banks have the money to lend to farmers (in
fact, it is even the mandate of the Agri-Agra Law). Irrigation
systems can be rehabilitated in a few weeks. Hybrid seeds can be
mass-produced in days.
Farmers just need support and what they need can
be urgently provided by the banks and the government.
The question that nonfarmers may want to ask is
this: How come, if the needs of the farmers were that really basic,
nobody is providing them these?
The answer is simple. Nobody, before the crisis,
has ever paid attention to agriculture. Cheap rice was always
available. Every city-bred pundit (a good 99 percent of all hacks)
had railed against supporting rice production through a supervised
program. Subsidy was a sh.t word. Government thought that neglecting
the farmers was infallible policy.
The government and the hacks had this poisonous
argument that rice self-sufficiency was not an imperative. Because
it was supposed to be flawed economics. Too costly. For years, I
have been arguing for a return to the program structure of the late
Paeng Salas’ Green Revolution program so the country can achieve
rice self-sufficiency. And the lost dignity of us farmers will be
restored.
It was the same cry of rice farmers across the
country. But nobody listened to us.
But as always, this truth will always come back
to haunt us: we reap what we sow.
mvrong@yahoo.com
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