PATHETIC.
This about sums up the state of Philippine agriculture—rice farming to be more precise.
How else explain that we imported 4.68 million metric tons of rice last year—30 percent higher than in 2023?
How else explain that we are importing rice every year not just from rice-producing Asian countries—notably Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan and Myanmar—but from as far as Spain and Italy? We are now buying rice from our colonizers of more than three centuries, from people who probably discovered rice when they first came to our shores in the 1500s.
So pathetic is the state of rice farming that the government is about to declare a state of food-security emergency on rice, ostensibly to stop runaway prices.
No less than President Marcos Jr. has said that the impending declaration of a national food emergency will “force” high rice prices down and correct the market.
“The reason that we are doing this is, we already did everything we could to lower the price of rice, but the market is not being allowed to work properly,” the President said to justify the declaration.
But no, Mr. President. No amount of emergency declaration can solve the food crisis the nation is experiencing. And no way will it bring about food security.
Certainly, much more needs to be done than lowering tariffs on rice to encourage more importation in the hope that it will stabilize supply and lower prices. Because it won’t. And the more we depend on importation, the more we compromise food security. And it goes not just for rice but every other food item that we have kept importing for decades.
Not even the President concurrently holding the post of Agriculture secretary could do the trick.
Recall that before his inauguration in 2022, the President announced he was taking over the Department of Agriculture to address serious problems in the sector.
“As for agriculture, I think that the problem is severe enough that I have decided to take on the portfolio of Secretary of Agriculture, at least for now,” he said. “At least until we can reorganize the Department of Agriculture in the way that will make it ready for the next years to come.”
The President reiterated the problem in his first state-of-the-nation address when he said: “With regard to food supply, we are confronted by a two-pronged problem: that which will hit us in the short term and that which will hit us in the long term.”
He then enumerated a series of actions to address runaway prices and supply deficits but stressed that the long-term solution would be to increase agricultural production and strengthen the value chain from the farmers to the consumers.
Among other measures, he cited conducting research on modern ways of tending crops and raising farm animals, production and provision of farm inputs in line with the effects of climate change, institutionalizing credit and financial assistance to farmers and fisherfolk, farm modernization and adoption of new technologies, provision of post-harvest facilities and farm-to-market roads, etcetera.
With all due respect, Mr. President, I’ve heard the same words from all Presidents since your father. And yet our agriculture remains in the same pathetic state. Why, we even have the so-called Agriculture Modernization Law that, for all intents and purposes, has been overtaken by time.
How else do we explain that our agricultural production has consistently gone down over the years—practically for all farm produce? And the solution has always been importation.
How else do we explain that the share of agriculture, fisheries and forestry in our gross domestic product has consistently gone down over the years, and now contributes only eight percent to GDP?
Something is definitely wrong, Mr. President. And it will take a lot more on the part of the government to remedy—not even to completely solve—the problem.
But a declaration of a state of food-security emergency will hopefully put our eyes on the ball more clearly to allow the government to come up with a course of action that will reverse agriculture’s state of affairs.
So, go ahead, declare it. But don’t stop there.
