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The
global rice crisis will not abate until 2010 and will
take another five to 10 years before settling down.
This is
the informed judgment of the experts at the
world-renowned International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)
based in Los Baños, Laguna, as advised by no less than
professor Elizabeth Woods, who chairs the agency’s board
of trustees.
Herself
a scientist and an expert on the world food situation,
Woods also indicated that rice prices will continue to
rise for sometime as production fails to keep up with
soaring demand.
The
Woods statement jibes with similar assessments from the
UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other
experts, local and overseas, and should finally bring
the “blame and accusatory rhetoric” from the usual
suspects to responsible levels.
Yes,
there is indeed a looming rice crisis—or maybe even
basic staples—worldwide, not just in the
Philippines,
brought about by a confluence of factors. But, as Woods
explained, there is no reason to panic as “there are
solutions and we can move forward.”
As she
emphasized, the current crisis has been brought about by
“short-term methods of some rice-producing countries
that need to improve their domestic production.”
If that
assessment rings a bell, it certainly should as it
reflects our very own continuing inability to put
together and fund on a sustained basis a holistic and
streamlined approach to our agricultural and fisheries
rehabilitation and enhancement programs.
Yes,
sir, despite all the talk about putting up “safety nets”
after our entry into the World Trade Organization in the
late ’90s and the twice-approved Afma budgets, our
agricultural production, especially for the basic
staples like rice, have simply failed to cope with
soaring demand.
This has
engendered all sorts of coping measures from dumping
inputs like crazy (read the “Joc-Joc Bolante” fertilizer
frenzy) to induced, high-cost construction of mega
irrigation-cum-power projects which were either delayed
or nonperforming, such as the Casecnan and San Roque
dams, and so on and so forth.
In a
word, every administration after 1986 has simply assumed
that the highly successful Marcos-era Masagana 99
project, which enabled us to have rice surpluses for a
number of years, will be automatically duplicated
without a sweat. Well, that is not so for staples like
rice and other highly vulnerable crops such as sugar and
coconut, so we are now reaping the fruits of our
collective neglect.
Which is
why we are aghast by the incessant sniping by the usual
suspects of the P43.7-billion FIELDS program aimed at
rescuing and enhancing our agricultural and fisheries
sectors unveiled by President Arroyo in the April 4 food
summit.
This
long-overdue multibillion-peso intervention program
proposes to address the basic problems besetting these
sectors, from irrigation systems to key inputs (seeds
and fertilizers), to low and accessible financing and
marketing, to education and training, to postharvest
facilities, to implements and equipment for fisher- folk
and the like. In short, FIELDS is meant to finally put
an end to all the wishful thinking (the sana mindset as
some pundits put it) beloved by the critics to actual,
real-life instruments to bring about a production
renaissance in our farms, lakes, seas and rivers. If
sustained, we have reason to believe such a rosy future
is achievable.
So,
instead of pissing in the wind, as has been their wont,
the critics should probably heed the IRRI experts such
as Woods who advised all to “look for innovative
solutions to supply and prices.” And that includes
monitoring the supply flows and the money trails
associated with the hoarders, profiteers and fund
jugglers and their cohorts in and out of government, an
undertaking which may well be in the critics’ alley.
So, if
they are as concerned as they say they are with
alleviating the situation, they can be real partners in
progress by conscientious assessment of the program,
which the IRRI experts themselves find realistic and
responsible by any standard.
Shimao’s
dreams
If, as
reported, Trade Secretary Peter Favila was the architect
of that $2-billion investment proposed by the Shimao
Group in the President’s visit to Hong Kong some days
back, then it behooves him and his staff to take a
second look at this hastily conjoined initiative.
We have
it on good standing that if the Shimao proposal pushes
through unrefined or uncorrected, only the company and
its backers, in and out of the Philippines, will
probably benefit from the whole deal. They will, as the
joke now swirling at the Bonifacio Global City area
goes, be laughing all the way to the bank. And the joke
is on us.
Why so?
Well, we
are told the Shimao Group offered to pay P22,000 per
square meter for the 7-hectare Bases Conversion and
Development Authority property they propose to develop
into a high- end mixed-use complex. The trouble is the
agency which handles all the base lands for a host of
stakeholders, especially the active military personnel
and veterans, just concluded the sale of a smaller piece
for P34,000 per square meter.
To
complicate matters, they have an outstanding offer from
another big-time developer at the princely sum of
P33,000 per square meter, or P11,000 more than Shimao’s.
These are on record, and if Favila and his cohorts are
reading this, they better run to their computers and put
in a believable explanation to Mrs. Arroyo before their
boo-boo gets to be the next “talk of the town” after
that “Gucci Gang” blog.
What
prompted Favila to shepherd a decidedly sloppy
proposition all the way to Malacañang, let the President
witness the entire affair and then make a big splash out
of a nonstarting arrangement remains a huge mystery up
to this point.
That is
a no-no by any standard. I mean, P11,000 per square
meter on a 70,000-square-meter property is a huge
discount which is not simply given out without anything
in return. Perhaps the Shimao group wangled some
“sweeteners” on its total development package, which
will offset, if not altogether enhance, the eventual
share of the BCDA and the stakeholders.
Perhaps
their offer—which includes investments in other
sectors—partakes of a total package, and the offsetting
can be done somehow.
We are
ready to listen to Favila’s explanations. If there are a
number of unreported details in the Shimao proposition
which merits such a huge discount he better spell it out
now. The sooner, the better.
E-mail: emman_delacruz@yahoo.com. |
