HE said — SHE said

“The present numbers are worth more than China’s importation of 2.5 million MT, quite unexplainable numbers.

An official of the Department of Agriculture (DA) swiped reports about the Philippines scooting past China as the world’s top importer of rice this year and for a reason.

What hogged the headlines the past three days was not flattering, especially for a country which just nine years ago was again exporting rice. What happened in between could be perplexing, but when one is down, there is no way to go but up. If we still could.

Daily Tribune business editor Jun Vallecera shared his experience while covering an event in the US, when even Washington Post gave frontpage banner treatment to the Philippines when news about its rice importation moved markets.

That is how important a player the Philippines is in the rice industry. We consume more rice than any other Asian country, China included.

Our rice consumption is a cultural thing. We used to be a rice producing country — among the top even, before we bought all things foreign, embraced other cultures we found attractive and hip, and dipped ourselves into a mishmash of adventure, development and modernization that we surrendered our capability to grow our own staple food.

We are in this stage that we are seeing our rice farmers ageing, with their sons and daughters now working as professionals, title-holders or are in factories, but no longer in the fields.

It is no wonder that in less than a decade since our last strong performance in the rice market as an exporter, we have less rice now than ever.

The DA official’s sneer, however, could not change the fact that the US Department of Agriculture-Foreign Agricultural Service somehow expressed an alarming number of projected Philippine rice importation of some 2.5 million metric tons (MT) of rice next year, which is just one million MT less than our present importation.

The present numbers are worth more than China’s importation of 2.5 million MT, quite unexplainable numbers when compared to the Philippine population of just 110 million as to China’s 1.4 billion.

Explaining that it’s just US’s numbers, do not answer questions that past and present DA officials should have tackled long ago.

The current solution to the rice shortage that smacked the country’s cheeks last year is importation, empowered no less by the Rice Tariffication Law that grants just about anyone and everyone the right to import rice.

With no implementing rules and regulations yet, imported rice have flooded the local market that imperiled the stocks of the local farmers that the government still needed to step in to ensure the Filipino tillers’ palay would be bought at non-confiscatory prices for stocks needed in case of emergency situations.

The Bureau of Customs, according to today’s report by Tribune’s Maria Romero, has reported a total of 1.9 million MT of rice passing through its ports as of October. That sent prices of local palay on a deep dive.

There is now a need to tone down the importation if we would want to keep our farmers farming.

With the projected 1 million MT less rice importation next year, local farmers could expect their produce to be competitive.

But that would not change the fact that we would soon lose our staple food.

A change in culture could be inevitable for the next generation of Filipinos.

Or we would be consuming rice at prices competing with gold.

In the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) third-quarter survey on hunger, it was concluded that fewer Filipinos are experiencing rumblings in their stomach.

That sounds like good news. It means more people are able to eat when they are hungry.

Involuntary hunger, according to SWS which conducted the said survey from 27 to 30 September, is the type of hunger that families experience due to lack of food. To put it bluntly, they have nothing to eat when they get hungry. Maybe not even the national favorite: instant noodles!

The latest results showed that some “2.3 million Filipino families, or 9.1 percent, experienced ‘involuntary hunger’ at least once in the past three months.”

In other words, the 2.3 million is less than the 2.5 million recorded in June 2019, a fluctuation anew from 2.3 million families in March.

Can you imagine 2.3 million families having nothing to eat when, in an archipelago with vast tracks of arable land surrounded by oceans, people can plant fruits, vegetables and rice, as well as fish in the sea? What gives?

The sad and undeniable fact is, the Philippines had a run of rice shortage issues not too long ago. And, horror of horrors, our country is on its way to surpassing China as top rice importer in the world!

Why is this a horrifying thought? Because China is made up of a billion-plus people, while good old Pinas has over 100 million. It makes one wonder if it’s because we truly and madly love our rice, really — or something is not quite right.

According to a recent news report, the United States’ Department of Agriculture-Foreign Agricultural Services said our rice imports will “reach a record three million metric tons (MT) by year-end — the highest in the world and the highest for the country.”

This brings the issue to the enactment of the Rice Tariffication Law (RTL) last March — the topic of much debate among concerned parties.

The bone of contention was that the law opened up the country to unlimited rice imports as traders are now allowed to bring in as much rice as they want as long as they can secure the permits and pay the 35-percent tariff.

The new Agriculture Secretary William Dar thought it might be a good idea to increase the tariff on rice imports to stem the flow, so to speak, but some pundits thing it will not be an improvement. They say only the rice cartels benefit from this RTL, certainly not our farmers.

The aim was to bring the rice prices down to the ideal P25 per kilo, but even with the volume of rice now flooding into the country, prices remain at around P38 on average per kilo.

Aside from the fact that our farmers are dealing with much lower prices for their palay now (with farmgate price reportedly now a a level below a farmer’s average production cost), there is also that news on the prices of vegetables also dropping fast nowadays.

An oversupply of sayote in Benguet now has farmers there selling their crops at P2 to P3 per kilo. A report on CNN Philippines noted a continued drop in prices of corn, vegetables and sugar due to inflation movements.

As for other food, chicken and beef prices have risen in the National Capital Region and Central Luzon due to the pork scare from the African swine fever.

What we have, from a consumer’s point of view, then, are cheaper vegetables and all the rice you can eat, but not many want to eat pork yet. With chicken and beef pricier nowadays, Filipino families are forced to eat healthier nowadays.

It is not healthy, however, to contemplate whether there is anything to be concerned about with the importation of rice over the estimated need of only a million metric tons a year. The problem, you see, goes beyond greedy cartels, but also the issue of corruption in Customs and law enforcement agencies.

The whole thing can make one want to chomp on greedy monsters, but where’s the sustenance in that?

Then again, who wants a whole lot of sautéed sayote when what you really want is chicken and pork practically melting in piping hot adobo sauce?