Chew some grain

Chew some grain | Daily Tribune

How much do we love rice? Indeed, most Filipinos cannot eat adobo, kare-kare or mechado without it, lots of it — and we don’t care if anyone says we should eat sinigang like soup, just soup, a starter in a meal. Its sour, savory goodness just doesn’t deserve to be without rice.

And when we go on trips outside the country (unless it is to other Asian countries), at some point in our travels we realize that we cannot live on bread (or potatoes) alone. We go looking for rice, never mind if it’s not a Filipino restaurant. We can enjoy rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and sometimes even in between, never mind what they say that it could make you gain weight fast.

Such is our love for rice that the country is importing so much more of it, earning us the title – once again — of “world’s leading importer of rice.”

Yes, it was all over lately that the “US Department of Agriculture (USDA) expects the Philippines to keep its title as the world’s leading importer of rice, with shipments this year expected to increase to 4.1 million metric tons, 5.1 percent more than the 3.9 million brought in last year.”

The USDA concluded that such a volume of imports is a “record high.” It cites “anticipated growth in population and increased tourism” as the reasons.

This piece of news is enough to get everyone griping about why a country like ours — blessed with vast agricultural spaces and fertile soil—should even be importing rice rather than producing enough to feed the nation.

Meanwhile, a broadcast network reported that the latest Philippine Statistics Authority data showed a two-percent decline in the production of palay (unmilled rice) in the first quarter of the year.

Over breakfast of longganisa and eggs (with rice, of course), I happened to mention the Philippines’ impending new title as “world’s leading” and immediately heard a slew of mildly irate remarks about how the Philippines had been the hub of knowledge for rice production, and yet ended up importing from countries it used to mentor on yield, production and such matters.

Talk immediately veered toward the hardships our farmers continue to face, the antiquated agricultural processes and equipment in many rice-producing provinces, and the high cost of rice that is locally grown. Before the vinegar had soaked into the rice like some tart soup, the Department of Agriculture had come into the picture, then government in general, abject stupidity, inefficiency and, yes, corruption.

There was a time I would have heartily agreed with all these. But having looked into the issue more — I mean, why is this a pervading, pervasive problem that nobody, not even the best minds in the Philippines, has ever been able to solve all this time? We can’t be doing it right, I thought.

It turns out — and if this is correct, then maybe we could approach the issue a different way — “…the real answer is not so bad: in a word, it is geography.”

That is the conclusion reached by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in a paper. “The Philippines imports rice because it is a nation of islands without any major river deltas like those in Thailand and Vietnam. The major traditional exporters are all on the Southeast Asian mainland (Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar), while the countries that have been consistently importing rice for more than a hundred years (Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Japan, Korea and Malaysia) are all islands or narrow peninsulas.”

“…Trade liberalization is a term that is used widely today, although it is often not properly understood. Trade liberalization does not necessarily mean more imports for all commodities in all situations. What it does mean is that the price for a specific commodity inside the country (the domestic price) becomes the same as the price for that same commodity outside the country (the world price), after taking into account the exchange rate and any necessary transportation costs.”

So I went and looked into trade liberalization, finding out this whole economics thing impacting agriculture began in the 1990s… and decided to have some fruit for dessert before I have another rice meal some time later.