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Sunday, April 06, 2008
Gov't targets 92% rice self-sufficiency
MANILA -- The Philippines is targeting 92 percent self-sufficiency in rice this year and 98 percent by 2010, an agricultural spokesman said Saturday.
The statement comes after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo announced an ambitious multi-billion-peso plan to overhaul the country's agricultural sector to cope with the rising world price of food, particularly rice, the national diet staple.
Arroyo Watch: Sun.Star blog on President Arroyo
This will be accomplished by restoring irrigation and post-harvest facilities, said Rex Estoperez, spokesman of the National Food Authority (NFA), the agency tasked with importing rice and monitoring the rice market.
He did not say how self-sufficient the Philippines was in rice but experts have previously estimated it at between 85 and 90 percent.
Malacañang expects "bloody discussions" with grains retailers at its Cabinet meeting this Tuesday, where they will discuss ways to head off a rice crisis.
Presidential Management Staff (PMS) Chief Cerge Remonde said Saturday they will give the retailers a chance to air their concerns at the meeting.
"We expect the discussion to be bloody. It so happened that the Grains Retailers Confederation of the Philippines has a Cebuano like me for its president, so we want them to be able to give their side," Remonde said.
Some retailers have threatened to hold a "rice holiday" in protest of government's order to suspend their permit to retail rice. The suspension formed part of efforts to prevent unscrupulous rice traders from hoarding and manipulating prices of NFA rice.
Costly
Speaking in an interview with ABS-CBN television, Estoperez said President Arroyo has been upgrading the agriculture sector even earlier, but the increase in population and the global rise in food prices have forced the government to step up its work.
Even with increased rice production, the country would still need to import, adding that it was still more expensive to produce rice in an archipelagic country like the Philippines compared with those with large land masses like Thailand and Vietnam.
Government has previously announced plans to import 1.5 million tons of the staple cereal this year and has the capacity to import up to 2.7 million tons if needed.
President Arroyo on Friday unveiled a plan to increase food production through increased spending on fertilizers, irrigation and infrastructure, education and research, credit for farmers, and distribution of higher-yielding seeds.
She did not give a total for how much would be spent and Manila broadsheets gave differing figures ranging from P36.5 billion to P48.7 billion.
Arroyo had said some of the funds would come from government financial institutions, foreign aid and multilateral institutions such as the Asian Development Bank.
Budget
She said she hoped spending for these programs would not jeopardize her target of balancing the budget this year.
"We are close to balancing the budget. We will try to balance the budget even with all the expenditures we will have to make," she said.
The country is one of the world's biggest importers of rice and not even increases in local production have been able to meet the demand of the growing 90-million-strong population.
In 2007, Manila imported 1.871 million tons of rice, mostly from Vietnam with a little from Thailand.
Meanwhile, Remonde said that "when the president of the retailers brought up their concerns" with him, he brought it up with President Arroyo.
The association counts 80,000 grains retailers nationwide as its members.
"Also in the agenda at Tuesday's Cabinet meeting will be an update on the rice supply and distribution situation," Remonde said.
Solutions
Meanwhile, militant farmers slammed Finance Secretary Margarito Teves' proposed solution of bringing in more imported rice and slashing the tariff on the staple's imports.
The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said this may alleviate the situation for the short term, but will "complicate the root of the problem."
"What the government should do is to increase local rice procurement by as much as 25 percent of the country's total yields. This would empower the country's poor farmers, increase the availability of rice stocks for Filipino consumers, and direct profits to the local economy," the group added.
The KMP also said importing more rice buries the country deeper in debt, due to high interest rates.
"The Philippines has vast tracts of agricultural lands that could be maximized for planting rice. But rather than tapping this natural resource, the government would rather buy imported rice in order to facilitate the whims of corrupt government officials and rice cartels that earn billions from imported rice," the KMP said. (AFP/Sunnex)For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star General Santos. (April 6, 2008 issue)
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