PHL stays firm on rice self-sufficiency goal

Manila-based Asian Development Bank should go on a countryside immersion trip before doubting the Philippine rice self-sufficiency goal, a Department of Agriculture (DA) official said Tuesday.

 

“Kailangan muna nilang bumaba sa totoong sitwasyon ng Pilipinas bago sila magsalita. Para naman sabihin natin na minamaliit naman nila ang intervention ng gobyerno,” Agriculture Assistant Secretary Dante Delima told GMA News Online in a phone interview.

 

He was reacting to a statement by ADB practice leader in agriculture, food security and rural development Lourdes Adriano that the Philippines will not likely attain rice self-sufficiency next year.

 

“There [is] no historical data that will support this claim. It is not possible to attain sufficiency next year, not even in the near future. Not in your or my lifetime,” according to the ADB official. 

 

“... I challenge her to join me in visiting our far-flung farming communities in Ligwasan and Agusan marsh and in Arakan and Compostela Valley, or even at the foot of Mount Banahaw… so that she herself can witness the real situation and feel the needs of rural Philippines,” Delima said in a separate text message.

 

GMA News Online sought Adriano for an interview but was told she was in a meeting.

 

In an ADB-organized online forum Thursday on food prices in Asia, the bank’s natural resources and agriculture economist Bui Ming Giap said the Philippine target “will not be accomplished” due to the country’s lack of productive facilities, high resource costs of rice production, and failed land reform.

 

The fact that the majority of productive forces are working overseas may have contributed to an “insignificant” investment for agriculture, Giap noted.

 

“It is the lack of productive infrastructure that (is) in operation,” Giap said during the online forum, and enumerated the reasons why the Philippines will fail in attaining rice self-sufficiency.

 

“Resource costs for rice production seem much higher than neighboring countries such as Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. A large part of productive labor works overseas. Despite recent progress, land reform measures have been far from successful. Therefore, there has been insignificant private or household investment in on-farm productive infrastructure.”

 

Delima considered ADB’s position a “challenge” for the department to “do their best” in meeting the target.

 

The Philippines has 2.2 million rice farm households, three million hectares of irrigable areas and six thousand varieties of rice – a “great gene pool for the world,” the Agriculture official noted.

 

Philippine rice output covers 90 percent of the country’s needs, he added.

 

Rice production in the first half of 2012 reached 7.89 million metric tons (MT), up 4.5 percent from 7.57 million MT a year earlier. 

 

The DA’s rice production target for 2012 is 17.8 million MT, revised from 18.4 million MT.

 

Should the country fail to achieve self-sufficiency by 2013, Delima said they would continue to going for the target “even if we are not in government service (anymore).”

 

“It is wise to secure your food with your own means rather than depend on others. We must have more with less… We may be subservient to foreign interest for a long period of time but not at all times,” Delima said.

 

Based on the Philippine road map, rice self-sufficiency is achieved when production reaches 21.12 million MT to 22.51 million MT.

 

The Philippine government is looking at reducing rice imports to 100,000 MT in 2013, but ADB estimates that it would be 700,000 MT. — VS, GMA News