Last night, I was fortunate enough to catch BBC’s World Debate on food crisis. The panelists were some of THE authority in finance, agriculture, economics, and politics plus a farmer who wanted his side to be heard. The debate was intense but substantiated what causes the world wide crisis in food and how to potentially solve it.
Essentially, agriculture is being neglected. Most countries tend to put huge amounts of money on everything else except on agriculture. There is but little investment or help given to the farmers and they end up losing. They practically put in more capital than what they could earn because as prices go up, so do farming equipments like fertilizers and seedlings and poultry needs like feeds etc. Plus, they are also in competition with huge commercial farmers and imported products. They are forced to sell their goods at a much lower price just so they could earn a living. Most of these farmers do not even own their lands. The government is much too focused on other issues like politics, technological advancement or even urbanization and globalization. There is too much emphasis on globalization that the most basic of needs is being side swept: food. As more and more people go to the city, the demands for meat, rice and vegetable are increasing more than the farmers could handle. Some farmers, because of meager earnings and neglect from the government, tend to go to the city and look for jobs instead.
Analysts say that unless the government would (1) give financial aid to the farmers, (2) control market prices from going up, (3) level-off competition with imported goods, and (4) give priority to local goods, the food crisis would continue.
We are expected to have rice shortage sooner than we think. And it’s not just about farming and rice hoarding; it’s about massive corruption and misappropriation as well. That Fertilizer Scam years back is now haunting us. Should the money been given to the farmers, this shortage could have been prevented. Or could it? The neglect on agriculture in this country had long been going on. Joc-joc Bolante’s evil doing is just icing on the crumbling cake.
Back in the 1970s or 60s I think, the Philippines was regarded as the most progressive in rice farming and technology, hence the birth of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in UPLB. Many of our Asian neighbors would send their researchers here to study OUR techniques in rice breeding and farming etc. But today, we end up importing the bulk of our needs from Thailand, Vietnam and even from the US. We cannot even produce enough of our staple food for ourselves because of faulty government policy, corruption, conversion of rice land to other uses, backward rice farmers, deteriorating irrigation systems and lack of farm credit, among others. We misappropriate the budget for something else like the ZTE-NBN Deal et.al. Heck, even the Cyber-Ed scheme for me is a sham.
Another thing that bothers me is Biofuels. I think it’s great that we have an alternative fuel solution but do WE PLANT EVERY AVAILABLE LAND IN THE COUNTRY FOR JATROPHA, SUGAR CANE AND COCONUT? Why not use those available lands for rice or other food crops instead? Please correct me if I’m wrong, but we use marginal lands to plant these crops and for them to grow, we’ll need to douse the land with fertilizer, which is an added expense. Plus we get only a small amount of biofuel from TONS of jatropha or sugar cane or coconut. Then of course, where do we put the waste products of jatropha which is poisonous/irritant? The output is too little compared to the input. Is that efficient? We are using lands to plant for fuel and not for food. Do we prioritize fuel over food?
Our problem is systemic and it’s not easy to pinpoint what’s causing this rice shortage in the country. But one thing is certain and that’s faulty planning and governing.
24 Comments
March 30, 2008 at 6:38 pm
One other possible reason for the food crisis is that grain items like corn are getting expensive in the futures market. This is because the fuel companies here in the US have managed to convince the Bush administration to use the harvests for ethanol fuel additives. Since the present line of thinking is that if we mix ethanol with our gasoline, we’ll have “renewable fuels”. What the ordinary person doesn’t know is that there is more regular fuel used in making a fraction of ethanol.
There have been protests out in Mexico over the high price of corn…you can tell who’s partly to blame.
March 31, 2008 at 4:25 am
But the IRRI article you linked to tries to show that “faulty government policy, corruption, conversion of rice land to other uses, backward rice farmers, deteriorating irrigation systems and lack of farm credit” aren’t the reasons behind our poor rice production.
March 31, 2008 at 11:42 am
rico:
it is not the ONLY problems thats causing rice shortage. the article did mention geographic reasons for poor rice production but in succeeedig paragraphs, faulty government policies and possible corruption are ALSO causig the problem.
March 31, 2008 at 11:32 pm
during lecture, sitting beside one, behind one and a few seats at the left, right, forward and back of one were vietnamese, thai, bumbay, arab and other aliens from various planets. not on occasion were the really burnt out afros. now those classmates are importing rice to the philippines, one thinks.
in the late 80s, to the early 90s, before taking off to NY after getting the sudden thought that i’ve had it with all and everyone on this darned piece of rotten shit of a misgoverned country, one had bravely formed an ngo, launched an advocacy against massive indiscriminate conversion of agricultural land to industrial, real estate, commercial, etc.
imagine the taiwanese at the time on a feverish buying spree, followed by the mainlanders, the koreans much later and so many others, singaporean, etcetera, etcetera.
why the question begs us all, did it all happen during the time of madame cory her yellow army and black commando?
why?
because of hacienda luisita, perhaps? not only, not only. it was the lack of the farm support from both government and compassionate private sector. instead of giving out support, the chinese traders gobbled up the land. gobbled up everything actually, but that’s an entirely different story. we’ll come to that later.
if we were nationalized and find out why so much old riceland is in the hands of subdivision owners, it’s because the farmers wanted to get rich quick, or get rid of their poverty very quick and have handsome new houses, new cars, new betamax players and television sets, new putaje upon the table, and so forth and so on.
greed. no nationalism, nourished by loving support from government. cory was a hard hearted president. she did not care if there was a masagana 99, a land reform, or a other government program for the poor peasants. but even then, she had the backing of the corrupt and thieves who stole from the poor’s masagana 100 (that became 99, ugh!) and the FACOMA, and all the institutions built even before marcos.
these greedy bunch saw that cory didn’t care so up to now, you’ll find a certain undersecretary in agrarian reform main building with the surname cruz, first name bernie whose job during the time of erap was to sell government conversion certificates for the pro rata cost of P25.00 per hectare. imagine how cheap is that!!! and that idiot smartly introduces himself as pro-erap, but also pro-gma sometimes. that he’s the nephew of fv rames. fucking shit!!!!
and eight to ten years or more ago, i was fighting against it!!! and i almost won when several times, moratorium was declared against conversion. fv rames himself declared one of those moratoriums!!! but expect his successor, erap, the love of undersecretary cruz, seller of conversion certificates, to be against moratorium. and he really was. that took my gut, so i split!!! for that and other reasons.
so what are we doing?
we can’t fucking sit in front of our computers complaining!!! that we have no rice, nor corn, nor other staple?
let’s kill those sonumabitches cruzes, bernies, corys, etc. etc. that are selling the conversion certificates because one day we’ll just wake up to find out we’ve no more rice land.
and we’ll have people power just because we slept through it all? damn us all then. some of our fellow men make me deeply sad… so sad… specially because i had fought a lonely battle and what? that’s why i like living away…
March 31, 2008 at 11:39 pm
niña:
once i asked a hobo in new york why he and a lady were in the streets? and why do they always talk to themselves, apparently complaining all the time?
the hobo said to me: For all the wrong reasons man, for all the wrong reasons! and he turned his back and i was never able to ask him any more questions again.
same here in the philippines, man. same here!
April 1, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Phil Daily Inquirer just also reported that the price of corn has gone up. Folks in Davao have noticed and are concerned.
April 1, 2008 at 11:01 pm
the future doesn’t look good, eh. our farms are being transformed into subdivisions, malls, hotels, golf courses, theme parks, and what have you. in the meantime, those that have so far escaped the transformation are being considered for biofuel production. at the rate things are going, there’ll be nothing left to take care of our food supply. are we going to subsist on synthetic pills then?
in addition, i don’t see any logic behind the biofuel craze except that it’s more political than practical. studies have shown that biodiesels created from corn produced up to 50-70% more greenhouse gases than fossil fuels. we can also add that it takes more fossil fuels to create biofuels. going nuclear for our energy needs is the best solution we continuously ignore.
April 2, 2008 at 12:10 am
plaridel:
in just a few years, we’re spending nearly half billions of dollars just to pay for imported crude oil.
if we ventured into biofuel, we substitute fossil oil with natural and indigenously sourced fuel.
the problem is that they might be needlessly converting the tiny remaining parcels of agri land into biofuel plantations. that would be a disaster!
April 3, 2008 at 5:59 am
There is also global thirst for fuel. For example in the US, bulk of corn produced are processed to make biofuel. Here in the Philippines, we are upbeat on Jatropha, “tuba-tuba”, hoping that we can save our dollars. However, are we not consuming additional fossil fuel for the: tractors that till the land to be planted with “tuba-tuba”, trucks that haul “tuba-tuba” fruits, isnt the plant that process “tuba-tuba” will also use fossil fuel? The question is how many barrels of fossil fuel do we need to produce a barrel of alternative fuel?
The energy of most government is devoted to fuel security rather than food security. How sad.
April 5, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Hi, Jathropa will not grow on rice lands. The farmers who converted their farms to jathropa use will suffer a lot. As for fertilizer and other forms of subsidies, I do not think that it will solve the food crisis. Subsidizing agri through fertilizer and government buying of produce simply puts so much burden on the rest of the economy. Money to be used to subsidize the farmers will have to come from somewhere and that means the non farmers will have to shoulder it through their taxes. The best support that the government can give them are in terms of irrigation and post harvest facilities that the farmers themselves should maintain and farm to market roads. That will result to cheaper production costs, higher yield and direct access of the farmers to the consumers. The monetary subsidy in terms of fertilizer and higher NFA buying prices will mean that the rest of the economy will have to keep on giving dole outs to farmers or they will die. The irrigation and other infrastructures on the other hand, are one time investments that will assure that the farmers will become competitive and self sufficient.
April 5, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Our fast growing population ( 2. 3 %) annually coupled with around 4 million Filipinos living below the threshold cannot meet our demands for rice and food production for that matter. Vietnam and Thailand addressed this problem squarely and they have succeeded in curbing both the population growth and improving food security. The ” soft state, hard church” policy should be reviewed if we want to balance the impact of an impending food shortage in the future. Offshore oil exploration is a better alternative than biofuels because we have an extensive continental shelf or the 200 nautical miles Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) specifically along the Palawan area. Management guru Peter Drekel have this piece of advice in fiscal governance because this is where we often fail and i quote ” prioritizing not only in doing the right things but also doing the things right” in our rice production program.
April 11, 2008 at 2:20 pm
if you love pinas enough, would you do this?
a chinese in bulacan “buys” 25 people to make a coop, or two, or three, or four or more coops, depending on the capability to fund the de cajon registration procedure. he / she (chinese) then gets to own a libreta or passport-like booklet given only to coops that indicate the rice purchases of the coop from nfa. chinese then, using the libreta or passport to siphon the stocks of bulacan nfa, pampanga nfa, nueva ecija nfa, metro manila and so on and so forth and rebags and sells the nfa rice to ready big time buyers or retails them at a higher, “commercial” price. each time there is a big event on the horizon, chinese withholds stocks and waits for prices to go even steeper while all along keep buying more and more nfa rice with the libreta.
now, question, why did not mr. mantaring tililing of nbi who was tasked to run after rice hoarders and irregular rebaggers like bulakenyo kuno na chinese think of this? perhaps he does not know a thing like this is happening and has been going on for decades now.
again, question, replicate this process used by unscrupulous chinese in other regions — especially bicol and leyte and central visayas and mindanao where a lot of illegal and criminal minded chinese are doing business and living like virtual kings and queens. transpose this process into the coconut industry. into other agri business areas. that’s more than just a rice crisis that we have been hoping would end.
superimpose other dirty kinds of tricks and illegal means for obtaining rice into this anomalous method of doing rice (or copra or other) business. then you have a situation where our basicest commodity, the staple food, is in the hands of one tribe composed of slit eyed insects with a penchance for money that no other ethnic group had ever seen in their lifetimes.
would you kill the guilty chinese? if yes, you truly love your country.
now lozada family business is trading before lozada went into the discipline of comm elec engg where he electrocuted his . . . . aaaaay! did they engage always in legal trading or did they also use the irregular means mentioned above? why is joon lozada suddenly evasive, or defensive or mysterioso about the rice crisis being worldwide and all that jazz?
would you kill him too if he were guilty? if you ask me, yes i gladly would because i saw the pain first hand of the people who suffered from the claws of the extensive corruption of the chinese in philippine society from the cities to the countrysides. prubinsiyanong intsik? shit! in the provinces, that’s where they are most notorious. so what are we all waiting for?
April 11, 2008 at 2:25 pm
erratum:
mr. mantaring tililing is actually atty. nestor mantaring tililing-moongoioyd
penchance should actually read: penchant
prubinsiyanong intsik should really be: the lowliest form of evil creature on earth worse than the laman lupa
April 22, 2008 at 3:27 pm
It all boils down to public policy that is pro-poor and pro-masses.
It also has something to do with corruption in the government–from top to the rank and file…God Bless the Philippines!
April 24, 2008 at 4:06 am
To the Editor,
Please allow this email in the forum/opinion Section,
This year 2008, has been a disastrous year from the start. Since January 2008, we have seen record high of prices in commodities and basic needs all over the world. Food prices are rising non-stop and inflation becomes talking points in forum, seminar, conference, workshop or peoples’ gathering. The ‘buck’ of these problems are USD-dollar and oil related. Since August 2007, the value of the US dollar has plummeted against major currencies of the world. Given the fact that almost every commodities – oil, gold, metal, soya bean, flour, palm oil etc are traded in the US dollar, this simply means, the world is so silly relying on just one currency “the US dollar” in conducting trades. My point to make here is this: “If the European Union can create the Euro currency, why can’t the world, creates the World Currency”. The idea of World Currency (say the symbol is “WC”) would mean that all commodities be traded using the World Currency instead of one particular currency as currently practiced. The formation of the World Currency shall be the Benchmark in world trades. Why should the whole world, be taken into trouble just because of the United States is in financial crisis. I hope this idea be taken very, very serious by the world bodies – United Nations, World Bank, the IMF and other financial institutions. The idea is my own brain-child and I can be contacted via email – dingl@gperfect.net
The email has been sent to the United Nations, World Bank, IMF, CNN, BBC and many more.
April 27, 2008 at 7:08 pm
why can’t we use vertical farms, this will solve the land problem? oh wait… there’s that little thing called money again and GOOD management. god damn it… it’s hopeless.
oh, what about the babies that are born every year because as catholics, we should not use contraceptives? more babies to starve!
up for soylent green people? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green
/sarcasm
i’m kinda pissy right now, it’s not you nina, i swear. it’s just the sad fact that it’s the poor that will suffer because of this consequence. and i hate it when children suffer because of the mistakes of adults.
May 6, 2008 at 8:32 am
Hi!
I think the huge farm in Palawan, being facilitated by Bureau of Penology, could do much help if supported.
Great Blog!
May 8, 2008 at 4:42 am
Exactly. Because the Philippines is just trying hard to keep up with the rest of the world. It doesn’t realize that it’s niche is in agriculture.
May 24, 2008 at 2:29 pm
i always stress in some of articles that we don’t need the food crisis in the global arena nor can we cite it to justify our failure to attain food security. the country is a fertile soil for agriculture – we only need proper support and technology for our farmers to increase food production that will feed our people. with sensible policy on food production, we know we do it – feed our own people and not to worry about the world outside us…
September 7, 2008 at 12:09 pm
why? do we have technology enhancement to solve the crisis?
September 7, 2008 at 12:26 pm
make some move kasi para sa ating economy……
September 7, 2008 at 12:32 pm
do some action for our society
January 18, 2009 at 9:49 am
boto nindo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
February 19, 2009 at 6:51 am
only the people can be blame…