Tuesday, April 08, 2008 Alabado: Are we willing to pay the price of rice? By Roberto P. Alabado III The Planner
LAST week my laundry lady complained that her one hundred peso rice budget for three days does not go far these days. It only bought her family only three kilos of rice when it used to buy her five kilos. What will she feed her children, she says?
I think that the rice shortage in some parts of the nation particularly in Metro Manila is largely contributed by policy bias against rural development. Our development policies and strategies, despite their pronunciations, have always centered on improving the conditions of our urban areas and city folks who compose about half of our national population.
Rural development is only given consideration when problems of urban congestion due to the urban migration of the rural folks are felt by the urbanites.
One such urban biased policy is on rice prices. The government has always set the selling rice prices below market prices by providing subsidies so urban folks especially the urban poor can access rice.
Every time there is a threat of price increases in rice due to shortages, the national government floods the market with imported rice to "stabilize" the selling price of rice in the urban areas. Add to these the high prices of farm input then we have the essential ingredients to make rice farming an unprofitable venture.
All these state interventions are meant to feed the urban population but have indirectly starved the rural population. When are we giving the rural poor a chance to develop?
With rice farming unprofitable and new opportunities to earn more income like rice seed production and banana production available, rural farmers now are shifting to these more profitable agriculture ventures. Some have even allowed their farmlands to be converted to other land uses like housing projects and industrial estates.
Nowadays, various sectors are blaming these business decisions for the rice shortage and are now clamoring for more legislative controls to stop these land conversions and cropping shifts. I think these calls are reflective of urban bias; this is like saying that the rural folks must remain poor by planting rice so that the urban population can continue to enjoy low prices of rice.
A key for a more sustainable rice supply is to make rice farming more profitable. This means removing market inefficiencies within the rice supply chain so that farmers and consumers alike will be able to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
This will include paying the right market price and removal of rice cartels in the rural areas. I know that raising rice prices alone will not solve the problem; right agriculture policies, technology and post-harvest facilities should also be introduced to increase productivity and reduce wastage.
I believe that this situation can be an opportunity for our farmers' cooperative. Economic ventures of farmers' cooperatives must be strengthened and supported so that they can directly compete with the private rice traders.
Linkages between workers unions and farmers cooperatives must be established to allow the unions to directly access rice from the rural areas while the farmers will enjoy higher profits gained from direct selling. These are just a few suggestions that I deem doable.
So what about the urban poor? Government programs such as rice subsidies should be carefully designed such that these will directly benefit their target beneficiaries only. Perhaps local government units can help organize stores like the Kadiwa centers before and provide the genuine urban poor with entry passes to these stores; this will prevent other people like unscrupulous retailers from taking advantage of the cheap prices in these shops.
I remember talking to some local government units (LGUs) that were alarmed by their dwindling rice production since their rice farmers were shifting to other crops. They were thinking of creating local ordinances to control this trend. I was appalled by the idea of controlling the choices or preferences of our farmers in terms of what crops to plant. The LGU was very much concerned about the supply of their rice so I asked if they were willing to pay the farmers to plant rice. They said yes but they had no budget to provide rice subsidy so I asked if they were willing to buy rice at a higher price to make rice farming more profitable than banana production. They just laughed and shook their heads in disagreement.
It is sad to note that we just are not willing to pay the price to enjoy a continuous supply of rice. (For comments, email rpalabado@gmail.com.)
