Gloria faces new crisis

EDITORIAL

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03/24/2008

Acrisis in the region is in the offing as the supply of rice runs short, an event which local agriculturists have long warned Gloria.

Local rice production has failed to catch up with growing demand, mainly as a result of government’s failure to support farmers with proper technologies to increase production.

This is unfortunate since it would have not taken much for Gloria to obtain such technologies as the Philippines is a natural showcase for the success of rice technology propagation with the presence of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the country.

It is fact that the IRRI and the Philippines succeeded in increasing rice production so much so that for a time, the country was exporting rice to Thailand. It is now the other way around, with the country importing cheap rice from its Asian neighbors such as Vietnam and Thailand.

The government only needed to tap the technologies being developed at IRRI and open up funds so farmers can benefit from it.

The National Food Authority (NFA), however, almost always chose the easiest way out of the dilemma in rice production, through imports, but then again, there’s money to be made from imports by the powerful.

Vietnam, which has sent some of its best minds to the country to learn rice production techniques in the country, has flourished to become among the world’s rice exporters.

For the past few years, the Philippines has been relying on rice imports from Vietnam for low-priced rice to feed the poor.

Rice imports also suit the urgent political convenience of Gloria since it provides her an immediate supply of cheap rice.

Farms in Vietnam have lately suffered pest and disease outbreaks that may force it to suspend rice exports. That and the geometrically expanding appetite of fast developing economies in the region, China and India, both rice-eating nations, have strained world supply of the grain.

The crop problems in Vietnam caused global rice prices to rise to $700 a ton from around $300 five years ago.

Now analysts are talking of major unrests in the region as the supply of rice becomes even scarce and costly.

The country, with its vast open agricultural land, primarily in the south, does not have any valid reason to suffer from the rice crisis except for the sole problem that its leadership is not paying serious attention to the problem.

The rice crisis is an abject lesson on self sustenance, a policy that Gloria had abandoned in favor of open market.

A rice crisis is trouble waiting to happen for the country as a result of government neglect on the farm industry.

Lately, the focus was even to convert the country’s agricultural land, or the little that remains of farms not converted into industrial or commercial use, into plantations for biofuel feedstock. Rice has become a question of the weather and the availability of imports. With Thailand and Vietnam having record harvests for the past few years, it seems that Gloria would get over the hump of the rice supply problem through importations until the end of her term.

Yesterday, Gloria was supposedly sending prayers on the rice problem that the country has started to feel. From the looks of it, with rice prices hitting the roof in the world market, it would be possible to see local prices hitting as much as P40 to P50 per kilo, which would be literally a recipe for revolt.

More than oil, rice has the potential of turning the political landscape upside down. If the grain becomes inaccessible not only to the extremely poor but even to families of wage earners, expect an upheaval. It would be easy for Gloria to explain away the high prices of fuel to the soaring global prices of oil since the Philippines does not historically produce oil.

Gloria is faced with a different problem with rice prices since the country does not really have to buy the staple from other sources because of its abundant land resource.

If Gloria fails to turn around the problem then she can count her days in office.

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