Reverse “Globalization” of Agriculture to Address Rice Crisis

The assurances made by Agriculture secretary Arthur Yap and Mrs. Gloria Arroyo that there is no rice crisis are not enough. Far-reaching policy reforms are needed to guarantee the country’s rice supply security in the short and long terms.

Yap is completely off the mark in calling on fast food outlets to decrease the amount of rice they serve, purportedly to reduce wastage from uneaten rice. In fact, customers are already complaining about how much the rice portions have shrunk in the past few years. Moreover, these outlets cater to only a small percentage of the population, in the cities and towns at that.

The government can do more to bring immediate relief to consumers What is urgently needed is to by breaking up the cartel of big rice traders who hoard supply and further drive up prices. For the poor who can no longer afford to buy the staple food of Filipinos, a dependable subsidy program should be implemented to avert mass hunger.

Nor is further increasing rice imports the answer to the looming shortage. The National Food Authority (NFA) said Tuesday that it is importing 335,000 tons of rice to balance the expected shortfall in domestic production. This approach is unsustainable and therefore unreliable even in the medium term, not to mention over the long run.

Tight global supply and record high prices mean that the country can no longer be assured that traditional sources of imported rice will be able to deliver like before. Vietnam, for instance, has turned down the request of Arroyo herself to supply 1.5 million metric tons (MT) of rice to the country. Vietnam said it could only guarantee one million MT since it has to secure its own rice supply.

Only a sound agriculture policy that promotes and protects domestic food production can ensure the availability of food at affordable prices for ordinary consumers. . This, in turn, requires a no-nonsense, genuine agrarian reform program and a dependable support program for peasants, farm workers and independent farmers and their families. Alas, such basic principles of food security have been undermined and severely weakened by neoliberal globalization policies of past and present administrations.

The current insecurity in rice supply is the result of years of agricultural restructuring that has led to the integration of local farm production into the world market. Under this restructuring, the country has compromised its domestic food production, substituting “high value” cash crops for export abroad. This process has been most rapid since the trade liberalization frenzy of the 1990s, underscored by our membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995.

Land use and crop conversion has dramatically reduced our capacity to feed our people through self-sufficient food production. The latest Census of Agriculture shows that the farm area for palay fell by 86,606 hectares between 1991 and 2002. Corn, which like palay is also a staple crop, saw its farm area contract by 298,064 hectares. Consequently, the country needs to rely on outside sources for local food needs.

From a yearly surplus of $667.5 million in food trade from 1980 to 1994, we have been posting an annual deficit of $724.6 million from 1995 to 2006. Under the Arroyo administration, yearly food trade deficit is pegged at $719.7 million.

The urgency of reversing neoliberal globalization policies on agriculture is underlined by the factors behind the global rice crisis. Climate change, oil price crisis, US recession, and the rush to shift to biofuels from fossil fuels have combined to push up rice prices and squeeze supply. These are complex global phenomena that cannot be expected to be resolved in a few years. Thus, the need to improve domestic self-sufficiency and self-reliance in food production to ensure food security and protect the national interest. #

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