Part One
IT’S 2017 and yet the agriculture sector is still looking for a way to achieve self-sufficiency in rice.
And since the turn of the new administration, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol has set his eyes in achieving the country’s rice self-sufficiency, something that the previous administration has failed to achieve.
Based on the latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the country’s self-sufficiency in rice even dropped below the 90-percent mark in 2015, at 88.93 percent compared to the 91.95 percent self-sufficiency ratio (SSR) recorded in 2014. The decline was attributed to reduced share of domestic production to the country’s supply, while importation was increasing, the PSA noted.
In the PSA’s annual publication, titled Agricultural Indicators System (AIS): Food Sufficiency and Security, the agency reported that the country hit its highest SSR during 2013, which was estimated at 96.82 percent.
SSR is the extent at which a country’s local production of commodities is adequate enough to meet the demand of the whole population, the PSA added.
An SSR lower than 100 percent means that the local production couldn’t meet the country’s requirement for a specific commodity, while an SSR greater than 100 percent indicates that domestic production is more than enough to support the domestic requirements, the PSA said.
The Philippine Development Plan of the previous administration had targeted a 100-percent rice self-sufficiency level by 2016. The Aquino administration had also wanted to wipe out rice imports by 2013.
Despite billions of pesos poured into the government’s rice self-sufficiency goal program, local rice output was unable to meet the demand of Filipinos, according to PSA data.
Plans
PIÑOL has confidently said 2017 might be the year when the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) rice self-sufficiency program will start to be implemented.
“We are now in the process of finalizing the Masaganang Ani [bountiful harvest] 6000 [MA 6000] Program, which will initially target 1 million hectares of irrigated areas,” Piñol told reporters in a news briefing in mid-December.
“These areas will be supported with hybrid-rice seeds, sufficient fertilizer and efficient irrigation system and mechanization,” he added.
Under the MA 6000, the DA will identify 10 initial areas with a thousand hectares of irrigated land where the agency will plant hybrid-rice seeds.
“The purpose of the [MA 6000] is to address the issues that would contribute to productivity,” he said. “It’s the existing irrigated area that we are going to utilize, we are not expanding.”
The DA said it is eyeing to improve the national average rice production to 6 metric tons (MT) per hectare from the current 3.9 MT per hectare. Citing farmers’ testimonies, Piñol said they are able to produce more than the national average yield by planting hybridrice seeds in areas with proper irrigation system and efficient farm machines.
Past
PIÑOL initially maintained the country can achieve rice self-sufficiency by 2018.
This target was pinned on the back of the Rice Productivity Enhancement Program (RIPE), which would focus on distributing seeds and fertilizers to rice farmers greatly affected by El Niño.
However, when the finance team of the Department of Budget and Management deleted the P18-billion allocation for Piñol’s rice self-sufficiency program, he moved the target to 2019. Piñol further pushed back the target to 2020.
“The reason my earlier proposal, the RIPE, was disapproved by the economic cluster [was] because it didn’t have a recovery program,” Piñol said. “And right now, we are looking at a recovery program.”
He explained the recovery program means, “once you distribute the seeds how would you recover the cost of which in order to buy and distribute again new ones?”
“That’s the only thing [that] the economic cluster wants,” Piñol said.
And it seems that until today, there have been no final comprehensive guidelines yet for Piñol’s MA 6000 program.
In a newspaper report, a DA official said the implementation of the MA 6000 program might be pushed back to next year, as the agency’s budget for its rice program is not sufficient for the total cost of the MA 6000 program.
Mindanao
PIÑOL said he is keen on expanding rice output in former conflict areas in Mindanao, which is not usually hit by typhoons, in the government’s bid to achieve its rice self-sufficiency goal.
Piñol said the vulnerability of traditional farming areas in Luzon to strong typhoons has made it imperative for the government to look for alternative sites for rice planting. The agriculture chief made the statement after Typhoon Nina (international name Nock-ten) damaged crops in Regions 4A, 4B and 5 valued at P5.32 billion.
Piñol said he wants to expand food production in provinces used to be torn by civil war, such as Sulu, Zamboanga
and Basilan.
“[There are] unexplored areas that were war-torn before but are okay now,” Piñol said. “I asked the people in Sulu and they said that, given government support, they will be to plant rice enough to supply their province and maybe even Zamboanga.”
He cited Basilan and Tawi-tawi as other potential areas.
“These are areas that are not threatened by climatic disturbance, which we want to explore.”
To be continued
Image credits: Nonie Reyes