Tuesday, April 15, 2008 Editorial: Ooops! There goes the future
THE International Rice Research Institute (Irri) has called for an Asian consultation amid the price rice crisis that is now creating uncertainty and panic buying in the Philippines and havoc in other areas.
In calling for a forum, Irri listed six vital concerns that the countries have to address in order to ensure rice sufficiency at relatively affordable prices.
First, Irri noted a gap between the potential and actual yields of high yielding rice varieties. This is because farmers need to improve their crop management skills.
Then there is the never-ending call for post-harvest technologies. While there are new technologies that can ensure high recovery of harvested grain, the Irri said these are not widely used.
We only have to see the "golden highways" to realize that those grains being dried on the road where vehicles zoom past all the time are actually our farmers' rice harvest. And we can just imagine how much of the grains are wasted because of this primitive process.
Irri further noted that a number of higher yielding varieties have already been released but farmers prefer to use cheaper seeds that may not give high yields but are well within their budget.
Rice breeding and research pipelines are also dwindling with funding for development of new rice varieties declining. There are also new pest outbreaks with the changes in the climate.
The Irri said that while there are more than 100,000 rice varieties now managed and used at Irri and other Asian nations, scientists have only studied around 10 percent of these.
What mysteries and answers do the remaining 90 percent hold for rice security? For as long as nations do not address this, the answers will never be known.
Lastly, aside from the dwindling funding for research and breeding, there is also a dwindling stock of young scientists and researchers.
"Asia urgently needs to train a new generation of rice scientists and researchers before the present generation retires," the Irri report said.
But we see a gloomy future as our college students don their white uniforms for nursing, leaving agriculture courses to those who do not have any choice.
We all know that Mindanao has always been the food basket, and giving this up to mining may bring money to the poor highlanders but it will not provide food on their table.
May it not take long for our policy makers to realize that money does not necessarily convert to food. You only have to recall how fast the petroleum product prices have risen this year to get a grasp of the fact that today's take home pay of minimum wage earners cannot even buy five liters of premium high-octane gas nor five kilos of high-grade commercial rice a day. It will be worse tomorrow if we do not take care of our agriculture and our land.
