RP depends on rice importation to address food security concerns

MANILA, Philippines - Self-sufficiency was never the recipe used by the government in ensuring food security in the Philippines. In the last 42 years, covering five administrations, the country — endowed with 14 million hectares of agricultural lands — had been more of an importer than an exporter of rice, its main staple. Data from the International Rice Research Institute showed that from 1965 to 1985, or during the Marcos administration, the Philippines imported a total of 3.23 million MT of milled rice, and only exported 663,000 MT or 20.5 percent of total import. A separate data from the Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Agricultural Statistics showed that from 1986 to 2007, or from the Aquino to the Arroyo administration, total rice import stood at 15.84 million MT, while total export was only 177,796 MT or 1.1 percent of the total import. Of the 15.84 million MT of imported rice, 58 percent or 9.25 million MT was imported by the Arroyo administration. Since 2001, its yearly average rice importation stood at 1.32 million MT. The Estrada administration, with yearly average rice importation of 1.02 million MT, was the second biggest importer, followed by the Ramos administration with a yearly average of 520,563 MT. The Aquino administration had the smallest share of yearly average importation at 139,932 MT after the Marcos era. From 1965 to 1985, during the term of President Ferdinand Marcos, rice imports exceeded rice exports for 12 years (1965 to 1967; 1971 to 1977; and 1984 to 1985), while exports surpassed imports for nine years (1968 to 1970; and 1978 to 1983). In the post-Marcos era, from 1986 to 2007, imports outweighed exports for 19 years (in 1986; 1988 to 1990; and 1993 to 2007). During the same period, rice exports only outpaced imports in the years 1987, 1991, and 1992. The biggest export of 111,664 MT of rice was recorded in 1987 during the Aquino administration. The biggest import of 2.17 million MT happened in 1998, during the Ramos and Estrada administration. In November 2006, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization included the Philippines among the 82 "low income food-deficit" countries or those "net importers of food with imports of basic foods outweighing exports over the past three years." But as shown in the history of the country's international rice trade, food deficit did not only happen recently, but was in fact a chronic practice to address food shortage. Rice importation is actually as old as the Spanish governors who ruled the country in the 1800s. Since the colonial times, Philippine agriculture was import-dependent and export-oriented — farmers plant cash crops like abaca, indigo, tobacco, and coffee for export, and import rice for local consumption. In an article titled "Food Security and Rice," Onofre Corpuz, education minister during the Marcos administration, said the country was already facing rice shortage in 1870, or 35 years after Spain allowed large-scale farming of non-rice crops for export. He said that since that time, the Philippines addressed rice shortage through importation from Indochina. In the 1890s, the country's rice importation reached 45,000 tons, according to Corpuz. - GMANews.TV