DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
10/7/2011
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)
