BANTAY GOBYERNO
Ike Señeres
Perhaps with the intention of assuring the
general public, the Department of Agriculture (DA) announced that we have a
sufficient supply of rice, because we have an existing inventory that would
last 87 days, three days short of 3 months.
I understand that food security is a matter
of national security, but I still have to find a policy statement in writing
that would specifically say how much rice inventory we should have, and how
long it should last, in order to ensure food security.
It seems however that there is no such
written policy pronouncement anywhere, and instead of that, we have the DA
unilaterally announcing that we have food security, because we have a few
months supply of rice. Without a written pronouncement, I wonder how the DA
determines how much inventory is enough to ensure food security.
Of course, food security means more than just
rice sufficiency, but never mind that, because for now let us just talk about
our rice supplies. Not knowing how the other rice consuming countries would measure
their rice sufficiency, I found one other point of comparison, and that is a
phrase in the Old Testament specifically saying that there should be a grains
storage that should last 7 years.
Some might say that a 7 year inventory is too
much, and that it is too long to keep it. Assuming that that is the case, we
can perhaps settle for less than that, but I say that our measurement should
still be in years, and not in months, just to be safe, so to speak. If you ask
me, I will say that it should be about half of 7 years, and that would be about
3 years. To me, 3 years definitely sounds better than 3 months.
Pardon my own line of reasoning, but I
personally believe that rice sufficiency should mean self-sufficiency and that
means having our own rice production, in other words we should not be relying
on rice importation at all. Perhaps for the sake of argument, I would even
agree that 3 months inventory would be good enough to have food security, but
only if we have our own rice production to rely on, instead of relying on rice
importation. But since we are talking about food security in the first place,
it would only be proper for the DA to inform the public how much of the 3
months inventory is sourced from our own production, and how much is sourced from
rice importation.
While it would be easy for the DA to assume
that it would be easy for us to import rice supplies just in case our 3 months
inventory would run out, they should be aware of the grand irony that the
countries that are exporting rice to us are also rice consuming countries just
like us, and that grand irony could lead to probable conflicts of interests, in
the sense that these rice exporting countries might be forced not to sell to
us, if they themselves would be threatened by their own rice shortages, for
whatever reasons that would come up. It is reasonable to assume that these
countries are now exporting rice to us because they still have their own
inventories for their own food security, but their behavior could change if
these inventories would run out.
It is already a known fact that China is
building a second giant dam ostensibly for purposes of power generation, but we
could reasonably guess that it is also for irrigation purposes. At the outset,
we could say that they are doing that for their own energy security and their
own food security, and that is none of our business.
That is not the case however, because that
second giant dam could potentially block off the water that usually goes to the
Mekong River, and that is a possibility that could threaten the water supply
for the irrigation needs of the entire Mekong Delta. How I wish that that is
the problem of the countries in Indochina and that is none of our business, but
the fact is, these are the same countries that are exporting rice to us.
Halfway across the world, a similar problem
is already happening in Africa, as Ethiopia is blocking off the water that
usually goes to Egypt via the Nile River. Of course, Egypt could always claim
that the Nile River is theirs, but it does not take much for Ethiopia to make a
counter claim that the water comes from them.
Likewise, the Indochinese countries could
claim that the Mekong River is theirs, but on the other hand, China could make
a counter claim that the water comes from them. Only a few years ago, many
security experts have already predicted that the next world war could be
triggered by conflicts over water rights and water supplies. That might just
happen, but the war could also be about the food supplies that depend on these
water sources.
As it is now, we are not yet experiencing
shortages of water for irrigation purposes, even if we are lagging behind in
building the infrastructure that would deliver irrigation water to our rice
farms.
That is definitely a problem, but aside from
that, we are also facing the problem of rising sea levels, a problem that will
cause the permanent flooding of many coastal areas. For sure, huge areas of
rice lands will be covered by either saline water or brackish water, and this
will definitely affect our rice production. This is the reason why I have been
promoting the cultivation of saline rice varieties. As a matter of fact, saline
rice production has been successfully tried and tested by the International
Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
Despite having excellent irrigation
facilities, Israel has disallowed the cultivation of rice, citing the reason
that it is not economically efficient, because it requires too much water. That
is a choice that they had to make, because of their scarce water resources. Instead
of planting rice, they planted higher value crops and fruits such as oranges.
From the money that they earned from these alternative harvests, they simply
bought the rice that they need from the other countries.
That is a choice that we could not make,
because rice is a political issue for us here. Besides, we do not have problems
(not yet) with water scarcity. In our case, we have no choice but to aim for
self-sufficiency in rice production, not only for economic reasons, but also
for political reasons.
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