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WE do
have a rice problem. I say this regardless of official
pronouncements about adequate supplies. And the primary
reason is negligence: The government has neglected the
agriculture sector.
That’s
as far as I would go with respect to pinpointing
responsibility for the problem. I would rather look at
the positive side, which is confronting the problem and
formulating solutions. And I would go even farther than
talking about solutions, which would be the second part
of my column on agriculture, particularly the rice
sector. I will talk about the unique opportunity to turn
this problem, a serious liability, into a major asset
for our economy.
First of
all, let’s talk about the rice shortage that the
government is filling up with importations. This is not
the first time that we have a rice shortage. It is a
fact that we have not been able to produce enough for
our requirements for decades. And we have always
depended on neighbors like Thailand and Vietnam to cover
the shortfalls.
The
problem is more serious now because many other countries
are demanding more rice as their populations grow, and
this is causing prices to surge.
The rice
problem is indeed serious, but it’s not really
complicated. The standard prescription applies:
irrigation, fertilizers, seeds, postharvest facilities
and credit. And the prescription requires money, lots of
it. For irrigation costs an average of P60,000 per
hectare, which means that irrigating 400,000 hectares
will cost a total of P24 billion. Now, I doubt that the
government can afford to spend that much for irrigation
alone.
The
Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act, or Afma,
provides P20 billion on top of the annual budget for
agriculture. I doubt if we can afford to put in more
than that. But that amount of P20 billion, in addition
to the existing budget, is enough, provided we interpret
the Afma properly. As I said in a previous column, the
budgetary appropriation for agriculture is in addition
to the Afma funding, not in lieu of the latter.
But let
me go back to the principal question: How do we apply
the standard prescription, given our limited funding?
Using irrigation as an example, how do we approach this
in the most pragmatic, cheapest and quickest way? When
we say that the average cost of irrigation is P60,000
per hectare, it means that some areas cost P30,000 per
hectare to irrigate, while others cost as much as
P90,000.
So let’s
identify the areas where the cost of irrigation is the
least, and where it could be done in the shortest time
possible. Let’s do the first 100,000 hectares. Here, we
cannot apply the socialized approach, where every
province must get a share. We have to prioritize from
the productivity point of view, given the urgency of the
rice problem.
We can
use the same approach with respect to postharvest
facilities, such as construction of warehouses. Take an
immediate inventory of places that need warehouses, and
start building where it would cost less and where it
could be done the fastest.
There
are short-term and long-term solutions to the rice
problem, but let’s start with the doables. Let’s find
out the amount that we can spend from the budget and
what the Executive department can spare for rice
production (in addition to the Afma funding) and then
follow the prescription based on productivity.
Oh, by
the way, we must make sure the farmers, not just the
traders, would be the ones to get the benefits from the
worldwide trading of rice. The farmers, after all, are
the ones who break their backs in tilling the soil and
producing the rice.
Ever
since reports on the global food problem emerged, we
have focused too much on the rice shortage. We have come
up with rice access cards, proposed food stamps, held
rice caravans, but we seem to have forgotten the
farmers.
What we
fail to see is that making farmers happy by providing
them with support like credit (so they don’t have to go
to loan sharks or sell their crop even before they
plant) will encourage them to plant and produce more
and, at the end of the day, they—not the traders—would
be the ones to make money.
Farmers
must be provided with the means to take advantage of
high prices through better credit, in addition to
irrigation and postharvest facilities. And if we really
have to subsidize, let’s subsidize the farmers so they
can get better seeds and fertilizers.
In other
words, farmers should be an important part of the
solution, and they should share in the benefits of
solving the rice problem.
Let’s
not forget, our farmers are the ones who nurture the
plant that bears the rice that we eat every day!
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