Monday, March 10, 2008 Bio-fuel prod'n to cause hunger
CONTRARY to claims, the Fair Trade Alliance believes bio-fuel production will only cause massive shortage of food worldwide and will consequently lead to massive hunger.
Dr Rene Ofreneo of the Center for Research and Special Studies during a two-day workshop on Transforming Philippine Agriculture through Balanced Rural Development Policies said agriculture producing countries like China, India and other developed countries like the U.S. have allocated a third of their agricultural produce to bio-fuels production thus causing the suspension of the exports of their agricultural products.
"Countries like China and India had already suspended their exportation of rice to protect the food supply of their country thus leaving import dependent countries like the Philippines in a possible shortage of rice supply," Ofreneo said.
The Philippines, Ofreneo said, is consuming 11 million metric tons rice a year but local rice producers only manage to produce 9 million metric tons annually, and the remaining balance of two million metric tons will have to be imported from other countries.
A research paper titled "Healing a Sector in Crises", which Dr. Ofreneo co-authored with Errol Ramos and Melissa Serrano, cited that the Philippine agriculture is a disaster.
"The agricultural decline started in the 1980's, when deregulation program in agriculture was introduced by the World Bank as part of the structural adjustment program," the paper said.
The decline deepened in the 1990's when the government began implementing the contentious Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program or CARP simultaneous with the opening up further of the sector under the SAP, now reinforced by the market commitments made by the government under the World Trade Organization and the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement.
The research paper further noted that CARP program was a direct contributor to the decline not only because of the weaknesses in the program implementation and the consequent uncertainties it has spawned, but also the fatal flaws in its design, specifically the glaring absence of a transformation program for the agrarian reform beneficiaries and the small land owners.
The stagnation of the sector was caused mainly by lack of clear development compass to follow aggravated by a deeply fractious or divided national leadership thus causing numerous inconsistencies in activities of concerned agencies.
Ofreneo however stressed that the decline in the agriculture productivity should not solely be blamed on CARP but rather on those in-charge of implementing the program, among them the lack of political will and decisiveness in covering difficult areas and distributing farms to those really deserving, the inability to provide post transfer support services and credit assistance to ARBs and Agrarian Reform Communities (ARC).
The weaknesses of CARP have definitely weakened agricultural productivity primarily due to low investments and thus keeping most ARBs still mired in poverty.
Ofreneo also explained that CARP-able small farmers can have its share or role in modernizing and making the agricultural sector productive if they can be transformed into modern agribusiness farmers, which means farmers who understand farming in an integrated way from seed selection to farm preparation, from harvesting to marketing to final destination but this could only be done with the assistance or help of the government like other foreign government do to its agriculture sector.
The findings of the Center for Research and Special Studies strike similarity with the findings of the German GTZ and the provincial government of Negros Occidental on the performance of CARP in the province - failure to deliver support services to ARBs and in process degrade their quality of life.
The provincial government through Atty. Jose Ma.Valencia, the chief of staff of Governor Joseph Mara¤on, clarified that the study made by the province is not an interpretation of the impact of CARP in Negros Occidental but rather a collection of what ARBs perception on the effects of the program with their lives.
