Rice Crisis Can Be Arroyo’s Undoing — Scientists

An immediate price cap on rice to avoid spiraling market prices
together with medium and long term policies to develop the domestic
rice industry will bring us out of the current crisis in rice supply
and prices, said the scientists group AGHAM in a statement today.

“The current crisis is a result of GMA’s policies that prefers imports
in addressing domestic supply shortages and the government’s almost
total withdrawal from developing the rice industry”, said Ms. Feny
Cosico, agriculturist and convenor of AGHAM-NFA chapter. AGHAM is the
Samahan ng Nagtataguyod ng Agham at Teknolohiya para sa Sambayanan or
Advocates of Science and Technology for the People.

“We have been importing an average of 800,000 metric tons of rice
since 1996. This has gone over a million in the past three years and
has risen to around 2.4 million metric tons this year. This dependence
on rice imports make us vulnerable to world market price and supply
fluctuations.”, added Ms. Cosico.

Ms. Feny Cosico noted that domestic rice prices follow world prices
largely because of the increased imports of rice from countries like
Vietnam, Thailand and Pakistan.

“Domestic production is unable to satisfy our rice needs because of
the generally backward conditions of production riding on widespread
landlesness of farmers engaged in the rice sector. When the local rice
industry should be backbone, government’s disinterest has broken this
to our detriment.”, said Ms. Cosico.

“Less than 1% of farmers use tractors and power tillers. Only five
bags of fertilizer from the recommended eight per hectare is being
used. Only 15-20% of total harvests, 65% at post-harvest level are
recovered due to lack of mechanization. These results to a low
productivity of around 3.5 MT/hectare making us one of the lowest in
Southeast Asia.”, explained Ms. Cosico.

“There is lack of credit support for small rice farmers and mostly
limited to the promotion of hybrid varieties. Infrastructure
development is lacking as in irrigation which cover only 45 per cent
of total irrigable lands. Government limits its palay procurement to
only about 2-5% of total palay production and instead spends scarce
funds in rice importation”, lamented Ms.Cosico.

“This lack of support is further aggravated by the existence of a rice
cartel and unscrupulous traders and government officials that
manipulate stocks and prices, as well as scandals like the P729
million fertilizer fund scam of Jocjoc Bolante”, said Ms. Cosico.

“To immediately prevent runaway rice prices, a price cap and price
control should be implemented”, stressed Ms. Cosico. “Prices should be
maintained at reasonable levels for consumers. NFA has previously set
this at around 18 pesos per kilogram. It should not be allowed to
deviate from this.”

AGHAM further stressed that steps to ensure rice stocks and improve
local production towards lessening imports should be taken.
Construction of required irrigation systems and development of
post-harvest facilities should be done. Palay procurement should be
increased from its current level to at least twenty five per cent (25
%) of the total palay production.

“Unless the Arroyo government reverses its liberalization policies,
and implement steps to achieve genuine food security and
self-sufficiency, the rice crisis, and government’s complicity in it,
may yet prove to be Mrs. Arroyo’s undoing”, Ms. Cosico concluded###

Reference:
Ms. Feny Cosico, AGHAM agriculturist and AGHAM-NFA convenor, 09162597716

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