“There are many more solutions which could make palay farming more profitable for the country’s diminishing farmers”
(Part 3)
Rice consumption is a function of population. We consume more because we are more.
Many decry that Thai and Vietnamese farmers trained at UP Los Banos and IRRI in Laguna, yet we now import from them.
This is a silly observation, because it fails to account for the fact that in 1978, Thailand and the Philippines had about the same population, 43-44 million. Thailand is now 70; we are 115 million.
Yet Thailand is all of 51 million hectares in basically contiguous land, while all our islands put together comprise just 30 million hectares.
Which is why Thailand has more than 9 million hectares of palay fields, while ours is just 4 million.
Vietnam has 7 million hectares devoted to rice, and its water source, the mighty Mekong River, accounts for its higher per hectare productivity. (A kilo of rice requires 5,000 liters of water to thrive.)
Indonesia has 11 million hectares planted to rice, but it has 280 million people, which is why it still has to import rice.
Yet it imports less than we do, but maintains a huge buffer stock through Bulog, its equivalent of our then non-castrated NFA.
So there: we eat more but we produce less. What should be done?
First, we need to promote economies of scale in food production, even on rice.
The agrarian reform program has subdivided what used to be large farms into mini-farms, which, at next generation transfers, is only 1.5 to 2 hectare-sized farms.
We have to consolidate these into bigger plots, through cooperatives or even corporate-managed farms so that mechanization and management will produce more yield per hectare. Vietnam produces 6 tons per hectare while we produce only about 4.
While their farmers have small plots as well, the socialist government consolidates these into successful cooperatives, while our farmers, except for some in Central Luzon, are on their own with their tiny plots.
If huge conglomerates like San Miguel, the MVP and Aboitiz groups, etc., were to manage consolidated agrarian reform beneficiaries and produce optimally, there is little reason why we cannot produce even just 5 tons per hectare.
They can use this for their employee consumption, and sell the excess to government through NFA, or if Senator Cynthia Villar, the chair of agriculture in the Senate wishes, to whatever other agency.
Then again, NIA should review its current performance, especially since, even in Central Luzon, their end-line irrigation beneficiaries receive little if any water.
COA should be very vigilant about NIA performance, where irrigation canals built do not have enough sources of water, as even NEDA chief Arsi Balisacan discovered in PNoy’s time.
There is a lot of harvested palay which are lost due to poor post-harvest facilities, with many subsistence farmers drying their palay in paved roads.
The total loss attributed to poor harvest facilities goes to some 7 percent, which translates to 1.4 million tons of palay, assuming DA’s total figures of 20 million tons.
That 7 percent loss is equivalent to 840,000 tons of rice.
Supposing every congressman and senator’s pork barrel is slashed in half, which is still hefty compared to what these legislators got in PNoy’s time, that would amount to at least 400 billion pesos, more than enough to have mechanized dryers in every rice-producing province, whether solar-power driven or conventional, on top of increasing our irrigation facilities to produce at least 500,000 more tons of rice.
Philrice should be able to develop, along with IRRI, better inbred seeds, instead of importing highly-priced hybrid seeds that produce rice fit only for rich men’s tables, and which require more fertilizers and other inputs.
Of course all these prescriptions would take some time to be fruitful, yet why are they not being started?
There are many more solutions which could make palay farming more profitable for the country’s diminishing farmers, and if we start funding and implementing these seriously, we could produce at least 95 percent of our consumption needs by 2030.
We can then project rationally what we need to import to address the shortfall, given population increases (with government adopting more pro-active measures to taper our population growth).
Then we can program our import volumes over the next five to 10 years through long-term supply contracts, instead of our current practice of buying when the shortfall stares us in the face already. (Conclusion in next column)
