Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 23:52:00 06/16/2008
Government officials and business leaders seeking a long-term solution to the perennial problem of rice shortage in the country would do well to consider the recommendations made by experts at the recent Asian-European Editors Forum in Bangkok. The recommendations include launching another Green Revolution, which, according to the New York Times, “is generally believed to have saved one billion lives over six decades.’’
The Green Revolution raised rice yields in Asia from 1.5 tons per hectare in the 1960s to 4.0 tons per hectare today. Duncan Macintosh, development director of the International Rice Research Institute which played a key role in the project, said IR8 (semi-dwarf) launched the Green Revolution and saved tens of millions from starvation in Asia. The Green Revolution was also the foundation for startling economic growth in Southeast Asia.
The Green Revolution in the 1960s up to the early part of the 1980s was one of the major factors that enabled the Philippines not only to be self-sufficient in rice but also to export some of it to neighboring countries in 1977-78. There is no reason why the Philippines, with its natural resources, trained manpower and favorable climate, cannot replicate the Green Revolution and finally attain rice self-sufficiency.
The experts’ recommendations at the Bangkok forum included:
1. Increasing productivity in rain-fed rice, which could reduce poverty and increase global food supplies.
2. Providing adequate water control by setting up intensive, productive irrigated systems.
3. Developing the means for farmers to adopt and use existing technologies that are known to raise yields.
4. Developing rice varieties that can cope with climate change. Macintosh said that an increase in temperature of 1 degree Celsius causes a 10 percent drop in yield. He said problems that are bad now and will worsen with climate change are droughts, flooding and salinity.
5. Solving the problem of “too much water,” including recurrent flooding, because rice “drowns” in an excess of water.
6. Intensifying research for environmentally and socially adapted plants, including hybrid plant breeding and genetic engineering.
7. Making agriculture a political priority and increasing investments in rural infrastructure and market development.
The last two recommendations were among those made by Sebastian Paust, executive director of the Asian Development Bank.
Macintosh said the countries of Asia could feed themselves, but not with existing technologies and not without taking into account climate change. They have to take full advantage of revolutions in biology, genetics and information technology.
The rice experts stressed the need for increased investment in agriculture. But investment here means not just financial investment but also investment of time, interest and attention. Macintosh said a better understanding of the cultural, social and economic factors would positively influence the adoption and adaptation of robust integrated technological advances for increased and technologically sustainable rice production.
What is also needed is an investment in terms of political will and determination. It is ironic that in the Philippines, where the International Rice Research Institute and the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture, one of the most prestigious colleges of agriculture in the region, are located, suffers from a recurring rice shortage. Students from Thailand, Vietnam and other Asian countries study in the Philippines and later improve the cultivation of rice in their countries, enabling them to export rice to the Philippines.
The trouble is that not enough attention is being given to agriculture in the Philippines, and not enough investment is being made in it. The rice industry draws the attention of the government only when a rice shortage or a rice price spike occurs. And even then, mostly populist, Band-aid solutions are adopted, and after the problem is temporarily solved, agriculture and rice are again forgotten.
The Philippines is not lacking in the lessons of the Green Revolution. It has been shown in the past that the country can be self-sufficient in rice, and can even export some to other countries. But for the country to be permanently self-sufficient in this all-important cereal, the government has to exercise political will.
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