Friday, April 04, 2008 Roperos: Shortage of cereal By Godofredo M. Roperos Politics Also
WHY is it that every time there is a reported short supply of rice, corn grit shortage inevitably follows?
Reports say, for instance, that a global shortage in rice supply is likely to happen and that our traditional sources of imported rice in Asia, like Indonesia, may not be able to deliver rice to us. The result is flurry of rice stocks inventories and announcements saying that Cebu has rice supply good for 60 days or something, while the region will have enough to last for three months, in time for the arrival of a shipment of imported stock.
Then followed revelations in media about rice smuggling, with law enforcers giving hints about the identities of big time smugglers, and reports about rice hoarded in warehouses. Thus the headlines about an empty raided bodega one day and another headline about a raid on a warehouse where 30,000 bags of imported rice were stored.
Anyway, legally imported or not, we have in our midst 30,000 bags of rice that can be rationed off in case things really grow worse.
But the point is, why are we faced with this situation again and again across the decades? Many years back, in the ‘50s and the ‘60s, Filipinos all over the archipelago were likewise lining up before mobile government stores for their ration of rice. And it was said we were a nation of vast untilled arable lands from Luzon to Mindanao.
So why are we suffering frequent shortages of cereal supply? Are we a lazy people that would rather sit and twiddle our thumbs while the rest of Asia work on their rice lands? It was even said that the skilled rice scientists and technicians of Thailand, Indonesia and Burma got their expertise from the Philippines, in agriculture school at Los Baños.
So what gives? What’s happening to us as a people? Don’t tell me that we are good only at talking and reading but never in doing and operating.
In any case, in the face of the current cereal crisis, some people I know are improvising ways to cope with the rising prices of rice per kilo. They are going for lugaw for breakfast. Some are alternating rice and corn grit on the dining table.
Corn is definitely cheaper than rice, and it goes well with broiled dried or fresh fish. But the price per kilo of well polished grit (No. 16) is only one or two pesos cheaper than the medium quality rice. So, Cebuano consumers in the towns are going for rice instead.
