Rice crisis

While rice prices haven’t lowered in Cebu even with the infusion of rice stocks imported from Vietnam and Thailand by the National Food Authority (NFA) into the local markets, the situation isn’t as critical as in other parts of the country.

In Zamboanga City, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol had to assure residents that something is being done amid reports that rice prices rose to P70 per kilo and residents were advised to shift to corn and bananas to supplement their diet.

Back in May this year, the NFA assured consumers that rice prices will stabilize with the importation of rice from Vietnam and Thailand in June. But as the NFA Central Visayas office admitted, the imported rice stocks sold by their agency failed to make a dent in the local prices of rice since most of the stocks sold are of the commercial variety.

And as the NFA noted, the stocks of commercial rice are going down fast and even with the so-called “Bigasan ng Bayan” outlets selling NFA rice to the public we still don’t know if the rice supply in Cebu and other parts of the region, let alone the prices of rice, will stabilize in the next few months.

While the NFA leadership cautioned against finger-pointing on the rice crisis, that was exactly the case during a House agriculture committee hearing in which the NFA and NFA council officials blamed each other for the delay in the importation of rice stocks that caused the depletion of the country’s buffer rice stocks.

But the kicker has to come from Piñol, who said Filipinos should be happy that rice prices have soared since it will benefit the farmers and not the big time rice traders who can actually jack up prices sans tighter government control.

He even had the gall to claim that he’s willing to eat the rice imported from Thailand that was later found to be infested with weevils or bukbok. We wonder if his fellow officials will also accept a similar challenge in public.

This is the same Agriculture Secretary Piñol who promised that the country will become self-sufficient in rice before President Rodrigo Duterte’s term ends in 2022. But midway into the administration’s tenure, the country’s rice supply is anything but self-sufficient.

In the meantime, consumers have little else to do other than perhaps to adjust their diet accordingly until this crisis, which had been with this country for decades, comes to pass.

Cebu-based residents have viable alternatives such as corn which can be cooked like rice as well as saba bananas which are thicker and can be eaten with cheaper viands.

But it is a sad and unfortunate reality indeed that the country which used to teach students from other Asian countries how to plant and produce rice now has to import rice from these same nations to feed its growing population.