Rice woes

CAPILLAS

A proposal by the regional office of the Department of Agriculture (DA-7) to reduce rice consumption by including corn and camote (sweet potato) in the diet may or may not gain currency among Cebu’s households who still prefer to eat rice thrice a day.

But even without a rice shortage, I think it is high time for Filipino households to somehow reduce their rice consumption if only to help ease the pressure on the environment.

I’ve mentioned this before but it bears repeating anyway. Aside from the rice being dumped in wastebaskets by consumers who ate more than they can (and should), the growing of palay in paddies produces methane, a greenhouse gas that ecology advocates warn is more potent than carbon dioxide in warming the atmosphere.

But I doubt if Filipino consumers like myself would appreciate this fact given that dietary habits die hard in this country where majority of the labor force are blue collar workers who need rice for energy as they toil under the merciless heat of the sun.

Even with the popularity of bread like pandesal, rice remains the base foundation for a Filipino’s diet. I should know since I ate rice for three times a day during a recent week-long hospital stint.

Since childhood, I usually eat bread for breakfast and rice (with viands) at lunch and supper. So why this suggestion to reduce rice consumption only now when the country is facing a shortage of cheap rice from the National Food Authority (NFA)?

Much has been said about the NFA’s dismal record to ensure sufficient rice supply for the country and various reasons like the existence of a rice cartel were given for this highly anomalous and unacceptable situation.

* * *

In a radio interview yesterday Sen. Francis Pangilinan, a former food security advisor during the previous administration, questioned the NFA’s claim that they already flooded the market with NFA rice only to claim later on that their stocks are depleting fast.

By reducing rice consumption, probably Cebu-based consumers can help themselves and the farmers who produce these crops get back at these rice distributors and their conspirators in government who exploit the public demand for rice to fatten their wallets and themselves.

But diversifying the Pinoy’s diet is obviously not the be-all solution to the country’s ever persistent rice shortage. There are others that should have been implemented on a massive scale a long time ago.

More post-harvest facilities, better roads and transport are but some of the key essentials in ensuring that farmers get better income from their harvests and not be shortchanged by manipulative traders.

Longer term solutions include a genuine agrarian reform program similar to one implemented in Japan which helped develop its self-sufficiency in rice production and a support system set up by government to make it sustainable.

Genuine land reform and by extension self-sufficiency in rice production remains to be a dream in this country where old money landlords continue to dominate and fuel further social unrest among the country’s farmers.

In contrast, Japan’s feudal lords were said to have willingly offered their lands to the government or at least most of them did after the second World War. They did this in their fervent belief — a belief that was later vindicated — that doing so meant ensuring their country’s survival.

We don’t see that generosity of spirit or spirit of self-sacrifice among the country’s landed elite who extended their influence in the halls of Congress and made sure that the government’s agrarian reform program remains inutile and subservient to their interests.

In the meantime, we may want to consider the DA’s suggestion to eat more corn and camote to augment the ever dwindling rice in our plates. Either that or we buy more commercial rice, something that more Pinoy households are finding to be pricier thanks to greedy rice traders.