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SAN MATEO,
Isabela—She has grown rice all her life. Maritess
Lorenzo, a mother of three small children, is just 35
years old, but she looks much older. She is always the
last to eat when the family faces starvation or food
shortage.
Maritess and her husband are among the
thousands of rice farmers in Isabela province—the
biggest province dubbed as the “Rice Granary of the
North,” which produces 40 percent of the country’s rice
requirements.
Isabela, being the biggest rice producer
in
Cagayan Valley,
has the highest area planted with palay covering 189.3
thousand hectares, or 45 percent of the total area
devoted for this crop, in the region.
It might seem strange that a significant
number of rice farmers in this remotest sitio of San
Mateo, Isabela, lacks an adequate supply of rice to eat
and that their children or grandchildren suffer from
malnutrition.
“The children here are malnourished and
the people drowning in debt. I wanted to give up but I
always think of my husband and my small children,”
Maritess lamented. “We are palay farmers, but we
ourselves cannot afford to buy rice anymore.”
Maritess admitted it’s getting harder to
feed her family on a family income of less than P80 a
day.
She and
her husband share with other farmers some 9,000 square
meters of rice fields owned by a local rice miller.
Maritess’s family is a typical poor farm family in
barangay Bagong Sikat in San Mateo, Isabela. They live
in a dilapidated nipa hut with earthen floor. Some have
no electricity or running water, and few possessions
other than clothes, cooking utensils and a radio.
Most of
the farmers interviewed said nearly 90 percent of the
family’s spending is on food; what little remains is
used for clothing, medicines and schooling. With the
passage of time, their wages have bought less and less
rice.
“The
price of rice, the country’s basic food, has skyrocketed
as poor harvests, a devalued currency and a badly frayed
distribution system have combined to create a dire
shortage,” Maritess added.
Rice
currently sells at the market for P25 to P30 a kilo. For
a family of five to buy 60 kilos of rice each month, it
would cost P1,500 or more. About 60 percent of the
families of this town earn less than that, meaning many
in this farming population cannot afford even a minimum
supply of rice.
“People
are in survival mode,” said Santiago Gamboa, a resident
of San Mateo. “They’re not interested in buying a new
pair of slippers or so. They’re interested in buying the
next kilo of rice.’”
Besides
not meeting their basic needs, Gamboa said the
unpredictability of the weather, droughts and floods,
epidemics and pest infestations are all risks which
farmers must face.
Food crisis begins to bite
Even
Isabela Gov. Grace Padaca earlier urged the Philippine
government to increase assistance to thousands of rice
farmers in this province to avert the shortage of rice
in the country.
Padaca
suggested that “the government set up more irrigation
systems, water-impounding dams and other related
infrastructure as well as farm inputs to farmers.”
According to the Philippine Legislators’ Committee on
Population and Development (PLCPD), the
Philippines’
rapid population growth rate is one of the primary
reasons why the rice or food crisis is starting to bite.
“We will
have a terrible rice shortage soon when the rice
distribution system, coupled with population explosion,
is not properly managed by the government,” said PLCPD
executive director Ramon San Pascual. “The government is
doing very little to address this problem.”
San
Pascual said if the rapid growth population is not
addressed, the population would hit 102.55 million by
2015.
Earlier,
President Arroyo announced that the farmgate price of
palay (unhusked rice) will be raised from P12 to at
least P17 a kilo to benefit rice farmers in terms of
higher palay-buying prices.
But San
Pascual said this is just an immediate reaction of the
government to the looming rice crisis. “There should be
[greater] policy intervention for our rice farmers
because it would make us more self-sufficient and
food-secured.”
Back at
the farm, Maritess lamented that some farmers have given
up and moved to the city for work.
“Farmers
have been caught in a vicious cycle of poverty for
generations,” Maritess said. “After loan repayments and
capital investments each year, most families have little
left on which to survive.”
As soon
as the rice-harvesting season ends, most young people
here in the farm migrate to cities to look for jobs to
supplement their income. While men drive tricycles and
jeepneys or work inconstruction, some women end up in
the sex trade. |
