Topic
:
The Rice Problem
As a result of the massive farm spending by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, rice production reached a record 16.24 million metric tons, before milling, in 2007. This year, the Department of Agriculture expects yields to reach another historic peak-17.24 million metric tons-on the back of the government's intervention programs to sustain agriculture's high growth path and improve the rice self-sufficiency level from 92 percent this year to 98 percent in 2010. We are pointing this out in reaction to Randy David's observations ("Rice: a policy blind spot," Philippine Daily Inquirer, 4/12/08) that the government is merely resorting to "quick-fix measures" and has "no substantive program to ensure rice and food security." Owing to the slew of intervention programs that the DA has carried out under Ms Arroyo's watch, our farmers have been able to increase their per-hectare yields from an average of 3.59 metric tons in 2005 to 3.80 metric tons last year, hence raising the total output from 14.6 million metric tons to 16.24 million over this two-year period. This production jump has improved the national sufficiency level for the staple from 88.0 percent to 89.93 percent during this period. But as several experts have already noted, our burgeoning population has constrained our ability to attain self-sufficiency in rice and other food staples. Even if rice production has been steadily increasing since President Arroyo took over in 2001, the number of Filipinos that we need to feed has also been swelling at an average of two million each year-from 84,214,747 million in 2005 to the estimated 90,346,662 million this year. We are banking on President Arroyo's P43.7-billion package of intervention measures for Philippine agriculture, which she has dubbed FIELDS (Fertilizers, Irrigation and other rural infrastructure, Education and Extension work, Loans for farmers, Dryers and other post-harvest facilities, and Seeds), to help us attain food security for the Philippines by 2010. |
