Food security
>> Sunday, June 22, 2014
PUNCHLINE
Ike
Seneres
We will never achieve
food security not unless we become a net exporter of rice. That is my own
personal view, and I am open to discussion about it. No matter how many months
of rice stocks we will set aside as our reserves, that will never be enough to
ensure food security, because that could run out in the event of a prolonged
emergency, and there will never be enough time to import the supplies that we
need quickly enough. As I know it, many countries measure their food security
in terms of years of reserves, and not just in months.
Too many
experts have already said that at least two regions in our country are capable
of supplying our rice requirements nationwide, if only they could fully get the
three critically needed resources namely irrigation, post harvest facilities
and farm to market roads. With the exposure of the pork barrel scam, it would
not be too difficult to imagine that corruption is the probable cause why these
three resources have not been put in place, more than a hundred years after our
Republic was born. It would also not be too difficult to imagine that
corruption is also the probable cause why some officials would rather import
rice instead of producing it locally.
Irrigation
does not require rocket science. I am sure that we could irrigate 100% of our
arable lands if there is no corruption and if we could have the political will
to do it. It is easier than sending a man to the moon, and we do not even have
to build space ships anymore because other countries have done that already. Of
course, irrigation requires electricity, but it also does not need a rocket
scientist to figure out that the flow of irrigation water could also produce
electricity. Obviously, there are already too many alternative sustainable
sources of electricity now, so much so that there is no more excuse not to
irrigate, because the power is already available.
If electric
power is already available for irrigation purposes, the only other component
that is needed are the water lines, nowadays generally understood to mean the
blue PVC pipes that are already so commonly used. Having said that, I could not
understand why our irrigation engineers would still prefer to build irrigation
canals, a technology that is about as old as the Roman aqueducts. Is it because
irrigation canals would cost more and therefore there could be more public
funds that could be stolen? Or are these engineers in bed with the canal
builders who are not too keen of blue pipes?
Borrowing
somewhat from information and communications technology, it is actually
possible to make water distribution “programmable and addressable”, meaning
that the flow of water could be “programmed” where it is supposed to go, and
the “address” is the location of where it should go. This is no rocket science
either, because the Israelis have been using this technology in their farmlands
for so many years now. The secret is in the solenoid valves, and this too is
also not rocket science because any engineering student knows what it is.
Post
harvest technologies would generally mean those technologies that are used in
reaping, baling, collecting, drying, sorting, bagging and storing rice grains.
All of these technologies could be automated by using programmable logic
controllers (PLCs), devices that could be categorized as high grade, heavy duty
industrial computers, as opposed to personal computers (PCs). Although it is
more complex than home and office computers because it is already used in farm
and factory automation, it is still not rocket science, and there are many
Filipino engineers who are good at it now.
For so many
generations now, we Filipinos have gotten used to using sacks and bags to pack
and transport rice. It seems that there is no other way of doing it, and we are
not looking for other ways of doing it. For obvious reasons, bags are still
needed for retail sales, but it is about time that we start replacing sacks
with the vacuum method for storage and transport purposes. One advantage of the
vacuum method is the reduction in wastage brought about by spillage and by the
infestation of rats and insects.
I do
understand the need for farm to market roads, but I also understand that in a
demand driven market economy, roads could easily be built if the business is
good. This could be a chicken and the egg situation, but assuming that the rice
farmers will be making money from the sales of their produce, they themselves
will be able to afford the building of roads, which need not be cemented right
away. For whatever it is worth, there is a technology now for building roads
with the use of soil stabilizers, a method that costs a lot lesser than using
cement.
Perhaps our
government officials do not realize it yet, but there is actually a direct
connection between rice production and water. Not just irrigation water in
particular, but water in general and for all purposes. Imagine if we have
enough supplies of rice, but we do not have enough water to cook it with. Just
to complete the equation, we also have to plan for the energy that is needed to
cook the rice. Hopefully it will never happen, but we should plan ahead to
avoid the triple whammy of not having enough rice to cook, and not having
enough water and energy to cook it.
The upper
class might not notice it yet, but the middle class is already feeling the
pains of buying LPG at continuously increasing prices. The time will come when
the middle class will not be able to afford the price of LPG, as it is
happening now among the lower class. It is about time that we look at food
security not only in terms of the food that we eat, but also in terms of the
energy that we need to cook it.
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