Rice is not only a staple food in the Philippines. For most Filipinos, it is essential for survival. The source of over 70 percent of caloric intake in Asia, it packs life-sustaining carbohydrates at a price all Filipinos can afford, including the poor. And even if a significant number of Filipinos have changed their eating habits by eating less rice for health reasons, the country’s growing population, especially the destitute, still rely mostly on rice for survival.
Thus, movements in the price of rice and its stock inventory threaten the social and economic fabric of the Filipino nation. Used as one of the measures in determining the state of the nation’s food security, the country’s old farming techniques that result in low rice production output per hectare, which is one of the lowest in Asia, is affecting the very lives of Filipinos.
With the nation now facing another rice crisis, I would like to reiterate an earlier call for the Filipinos to rise for rice. Get involved and help the country’s poor farming communities improve their rice production output, if only to help beef up the country’s rice supply. The rice crisis is a concern not only for the government to address, but for every Filipino to help mitigate, as well.
I am, therefore, suggesting for all cause oriented, religious, professional and business groups, including the other civic organizations in the country, regardless of the nature of their organization, roots and origins, to adopt poor farming communities to help them improve their harvest. We made this call before when the country faced an earlier rice crisis. We’re making this call again as the nation is faced with yet another rice crisis.
Let us provide poor farming communities with needed farm inputs, such as certified hybrid seeds and fertilizers, including helping them modernize their farming techniques, among others. Under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture, let us select those with existing irrigation systems and palay drying facilities and yet, have low rice productivity per hectare. The DA can help in identifying these beneficiary communities.
The country’s average rice-production output is now placed at 80 cavans per hectare. However, with the right certified hybrid seeds, fertilizers and farming technique, this production output can be doubled, if not tripled, as tested and proven during the time of Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap. Rice production per hectare then reached as much as 300 cavans per hectare.
On a need basis, concerned individuals and cause-oriented groups can help poor farming communities to rise from hopelessness until they can be self-reliant and are able to improve their harvest on their own. But to veer the mind-set of farmers away from the dole-out mentality, and to help instill in them the value of hard work and self-respect, they will have to pay their benefactors back the total amount used to help them on a staggered and liberal payment scheme.
The country’s traditional farming method and spiraling cost of agricultural inputs hurt the country’s poor farmers the most. This vulnerable and marginalized sector is virtually helpless from the effects of the volatility of rice prices and supply. And while there may be some private corporations interested to help these farmers, the procedure may, however, be complicated and take some time to implement.
Whereas, private individuals or groups of individuals can immediately send help to these poor farmers. With many poor families eating rice spiked with salt twice a day, the need for everybody to rise for rice to help improve the country’s rice-production output is not only compelling, but immediate, as well.
The current rice crisis brings to mind my advocacy against smuggling, when in one of the Senate hearings about rice smuggling, my testimony identifying Davidson Bangayan as the same person as David Tan, the suspected leader of a bigtime rice-smuggling syndicate, led to the prosecution of Tan. My testimony was even corroborated by no less than President Rodrigo Duterte himself, who was then the Mayor of Davao City. Duterte happened to be in that Senate hearing, as well. However, I’m still wondering what happened to the rice-smuggling case against Bangayan, a.k.a. David Tan.
Indeed, the current rice crisis is a very sensitive and emotional issue, for it strikes into the very heart and stomach of poor Filipinos. As concerned Filipinos, let us, therefore, stand up and rise for rice, if only to help save a nation and countless Filipinos from hunger, by helping poor farming communities improve their harvest.
In his January 20, 1961, inaugral address as the 35th US president, the late John F. Kennedy said about helping the poor: “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”