10/07/2011
The annual floods that are already an expected ritual by the
Philippine population have come and gone (at least for most), but the
problems caused by this latest deluge are certainly going to stay longer
than the yet-to-recede flood waters in certain parts of Northern and
Central Luzon.
This long submersion of our rice fields was one
major issue on the mind of farmer-leader Sonny Domingo, whose
post-“Pedring” assessment of the rice supply situation I asked for. “The
problem,” he said, “is the proximity of the typhoons and floods which
came one after the other in a span of a day or two (didn’t allow) the
rice fields and rice stocks (enough) time to dry. (And as) 50 percent of
Central Luzon rice harvests have been hit; now the grains are
blackened.”
I immediately queried if we are going to have another
rice pila — to which he said: “(Unless) we can bring in rice from
Mindanao.” But there’s a catch: “We don’t have enough bottoms (ships) so
they can’t ship enough.”
If it’s not the lack of one thing, it is
another. And as the crises for Filipinos never seem to end, the urgent
question for everyone now is whether Luzon and the rest of the country
will be facing another rice supply crisis because of the recent
calamities.
The top honcho of the Department of Agriculture (DA),
politician Proceso Alcala, boasted in the first few months of the
present administration (after sufficient rains blessed the country) that
“We have achieved the highest production in history.” He even declared
that, by 2013, we will not need to import anymore.
It seems his
enthusiasm was so palpable that, according to one Internet account I
read, “Old-timers in the Department of Agriculture who cautioned him
from such an ‘impossible dream’ found (themselves) removed or canned.”
It
wasn’t just that: Alcala boasted that only 500,000 metric tons of
imports for 2012 (as against Gloria Arroyo’s last year imports of 2.45
million metric tons) would be necessary. That, of course, would be ideal
as our farmer-leader Sonny Domingo will say. But given the realities,
just a slight miscalculation will usher in hell and high water for the
entire nation.
Just think of the grave error committed by Fidel
Ramos’ dreamy-eyed DA secretary, Bobot Sebastian, who, upon his boss’
much-hyped “Kaya natin ito” and “high value crops” campaign, held back
on securing buffer supplies and ended up with shocking images of rice
queues for hours on end, with people waiting for their meager rice
rations in lines that spanned hundreds of meters, and with rice delivery
trucks being reportedly attacked by hungry folks desperate to feed
their families.
Thus, my own advocacy for the country’s long-term
food strategy is not only to address the rice production issue but also
to start giving emphasis to changing our attitude toward the dietary
staple.
I have personally shifted to consuming only kamoteng
orange, something that my mother used to feed me by mixing into lugaw
whenever I came down with a fever. That white or parchment-colored root
crop on the outside (and orange inside) is what the Chinese use for
nursing back the sick. I now take this every meal, avoiding white rice. I
only take the latter once or twice a week whenever sinangag, paired
with chicken-pork adobo, is laid out on the table (which I still find
irresistible). But my “orange kamote and no rice habit” has caught on in
the family; my diabetic wife finds that her blood sugar has decreased
while my fitness-conscious son lost eight pounds of fat in a week by
totally avoiding white rice.
The People’s Republic of China is
engaged in a national drive to develop root crops — and a wide variety
of it — as its future staple replacing rice. Potatoes and such root
crops require a fifth of the water that rice needs to produce each
calorie and pack more nutrients. China, of course, has produced wonders
and miracles in multiplying its rice production yields from its own
developed hybrids and vast irrigation system. It is a balanced
development of that nation’s agriculture that has ensured its food
security well into a quarter of a century into the future.
The
problem with BS Aquino III’s Agriculture secretary is that he is
building his promises on wild dreams without preparing the ground, and
without a fully-integrated and balanced development plan that includes
all the other branches of government. Maybe that’s what the National
Food Authority sees as perilous, making it continuously urge for more
buffer stocks.
Of course, importing rice has become an unpopular
idea, especially since its massive abuse by the Arroyo administration.
But, if immediate food security is essential, then it cannot be
discounted.
The matter of actual supply versus statistical
shortages, as reported by UP Los Baños expert Teodoro Mendoza, must
therefore be checked out. We’re told that much of the supply, including
plenty of smuggled rice, is in Mindanao. But then, Sonny Domingo’s info
on lack of ships also becomes crucial. According to the office of Sen.
Antonio Trillanes, our country’s Cabotage Law has made inter-island
shipping so expensive that it is more costly to ship from Mindanao to
Luzon than it is from foreign shores to Manila.
Indeed, the
problem is more complicated than just a promise of rice self-sufficiency
in two years’ time. It certainly requires more “coconuts,” i.e. brain
power, to solve, (the literal version of) which, by the way, we will
delve into in a future article.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo
OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with
HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny
Cable Channel 8 on “VAT, Fuel, Power Protests” with Rep. Tet Garcia and
some NGOs; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus
TV and radio archives)
(Reprinted with permission from Mr. Herman Tiu-Laurel)
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL:
http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20111007com6.html
