Our confusing food
security program

The title of this piece is not our own words. It's the words of no less than the country's Agriculture Secretary Domingo Panganiban.

Last week Panganiban faced media at the "Kapihan" and the interview was reported by Inquirer Columnist Neal H. Cruz.

Neal wrote that "La Niña may be a blessing in disguise." Blessing because rains in summer are good for the crops.

But the main story is Panganiban's theme that we have "a confusing food security program."

The Philippines is a rice producing country. We used to export rice. In the 70s, we recall our Agriculture Secretary was Arturo Tanco and Panganiban then was one of those closest to Tanco. He was, I think, in charge of the Masagana 99 program.

Today the report quoted Panganiban as saying the country produces only half of what it needs.

The other half it imports using the hard-earned foreign exchange making the National Food Authority lose some P50 billion already.

And this is borrowed from the banks because the government has no budget for NFA. Well, it's still the people who will pay this P50 billion.

***

Of course, the reason is government is not interested in making rice farming profitable. I have always harped on this that, government is not interested to enhance food security in order that they continue to import rice. Making fast buck in the process.

How can you expect palay farmers to continue producing rice when the cost of producing is more than the cost of selling.

Instead of the amount lost like P50 billion… Imagine how many rivers it can tap for irrigation and increase three to four fold our production in Negros Occidental.

In that interview, it was found out our farmers are not provided the incentive, the facilities, and the support to produce rice.

Government interest is just to import at a high price, sell the imported here at a low price and, in the process, local farmers lose too. Then the next year the importation will be bigger and bigger and it's good for them.

Because of the low cost of production in Thailand and Vietnam they even make money in smuggling even if they pay those money to the authorities.

***

Sugar now costs P1,200 a 50-kilo bag of raw sugar. In contrast palay has a farm gate price at P400 and a cleaned rice at P800. Refined sugar costs P1,600 an lkg or some P32 a kilo. Milled rice costs P1,200 a bag or some P24 a kilo.

You can see even on a marginal land, a sugarcane planter can make money than a rice farmer. In rice there's no profit at the rate it is going now.

My friend Arthur Uychiat was in my farm yesterday. He told me I should stop complaining but follow him and plant vegetables.

I got interested in what Art Uychiat was telling me. And together with my other guests, farmers from Leyte brought by Ms. Edna Garde we discussed vegetable farming. The Leyte farmers were interested in organic farming.

The problem is the market, I told Art. He said there's no problem. He is a vegetable producer himself.

***

Why does not government raise the price support of rice?

The interview by Neal H. Cruz of the agriculture secretary showed rice is our staple food that if it is made expensive, it will make the unpopular government more unpopular.

Why do Thailand and Vietnam produce more rice? They have wider areas for rice. Every rice they have is tapped for irrigation. This is in addition to financing, technical, and marketing support by their government. Our own farmers are left to fend for themselves.

There are seven big rivers in Negros. Only the Bago river is tapped. The other six rivers are not. And Bago river was tapped in 1966 or 40 years ago by then Executive Secretary Rafael M. Salas.

Since then nobody worked to tap the other rivers.

***

Panganiban then said and Gov. Joseph Marañon should know this. We cannot continue importing rice for long.

Recently Thailand, one of the world's biggest rice exporters, announced it may no longer export rice for its own food security.

And China is buying up all rice surplus available in the world market. This means even if we have the dollars we cannot have rice to buy. And Vietnam which is fast progressing may need its own rice too.

The problem is even if Mindanao produces enough it will be more costly to ship goods from Cotabato than from Bangkok or Saigon.

This is the compliment of Congress that authored the sabotage law that to protect local shipping, they make local shipment costly.

I don't want to sound alarmist but expect in the future food riots in the country because we were not made to produce our own food.*

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