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By Conrad Cariño, Senior Desk Editor
Various agriculture experts say the Philippines
would not be experiencing a rice shortage at all, if the right moves
had been done.
Had her administration prioritized agriculture
spending during the past years, the problems the country’s farm
sector is facing now would not have come into existence.
This is because the country could easily
increase its per-hectare yield of palay (unhusked rice) by 50
percent from the current three to four metric tons per hectare,
especially with the scientific knowledge, techniques and laboratory
resources accumulated by the Philippine Rice Research Institute and
the International Rice Research Institute.
Likewise, the government has vast undeveloped
lands that it could have developed for accelerated agriculture
activities.
Dr. Arsenio Balisacan, head of the Southeast
Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research and
Agriculture, was very right when he said, years before the rice
crisis hit the country, that the government must invest in the
agriculture and rural sector to achieve food security and win over
poverty.
But you still have to give credit to President
Gloria Arroyo for immediately allotting billions of pesos for
agriculture development under her FIELDS initiative.
The FIELDS initiative, with P43 billion in
funding, massively boosts spending for loans, fertilizer,
irrigation, education and training of farmers and fisher folk,
dryers and other postharvest facilities, and seeds of the
high-yielding, hybrid varieties. It was unveiled by the President
during the National Food Summit held in April at the Clark Freeport
in Pampanga.
With that much funding, Agriculture Secretary
Arthur Yap believes the country can achieve a rice self-sufficiency
level of 98 percent by 2010. The present self-sufficiency in the
grains is between 90 to 95 percent.
For this year, the Agriculture department is
projecting palay production to reach 17.32 million metric tons,
which is more than a million tons higher than last year’s 16.24
million metric tons.
Under the department’s Rice Self-Sufficiency
Plan, palay production is expected to reach 18.55 million metric
tons in 2009 and 19.77 million metric tons in 2010. This translates
to a 98-percent rice self-sufficiency level. A 100-percent rice
self-sufficiency level is highly possible by 2011.
Warning: Corn crisis looms
While the Agriculture department can claim the
country is on its way to attaining rice self-sufficiency, a corn
shortage may be looming.
In a forum held in June, an official of the GMA
(Ginintuang Masaganang Ani) Corn Program said the high prices of
inorganic fertilizers are forcing many farmers not to plant corn, or
cut their planting of the crop by half. Corn in the Philippines is
largely grown for animal feeds.
If the national production of corn does not meet
the 7.9-million metric ton target for this year, the country may
have to import the grain. However, that may be difficult because
corn for feeds is in short supply worldwide because it is a major
biofuel crop.
Nonetheless, President Arroyo deserves a
“passing grade” for preventing the country from sinking into a
situation where food riots would be the norm.
She even made the bold move of putting in place
a moratorium on the conversion of rice lands, which past presidents
never did.
On top of that, she is aggressively pushing
biofuel farming projects.
In this year’s SONA, Mrs. Ar-royo can boast of
revitalizing the agriculture sector with massive investments.
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