We Filipinos love rice. It’s our staple food. I myself cannot last a whole week without eating rice. When I am traveling, after three days of no rice, I am like a drug addict. Nanginginig na ako, I have to look for an Asian restaurant so I could have a rice meal at least for dinner.
The Philippines is known in the world as one of the largest rice-producing countries. Our productivity increased by many folds when in the 1960s, the government launched the Green Revolution program. The International Rice Research Institute was also created. Our farmers were taught how to increase their yield. The government also invested heavily in irrigation which substantially increased our country’s irrigable land.
Back in the day, what I know is we only import rice from Vietnam and Thailand when we are badly hit by typhoons or continuous rain that disrupts our rice planting. And also when there are long droughts and sometimes the ricefields are invaded by pests. Otherwise, our local farmers are able to sufficiently supply our mouths with locally grown rice from Nueva Ecija, Mountain Province, some parts of Mindanao, and from Western Visayas.
Kung kulangin man, konti na lang. If we have to import, it is only meant to augment our rice production, say 7% of our national requirement.
Today, our country imports rice heavily. I feel sorry for the local farmers. To help them, let’s only buy locally produced rice.
I hope our government, present, and future, will always make local rice production a priority, and reserve the importation only to augment what is lacking. I hope the importation of rice from other countries should not be the rule, and should only be resorted to as an exception.
Government officials from the National Food Authority who are tasked to manage the country’s rice supply must be focused, extremely competent and knowledgeable to balance and predict when we only need to import to prevent any rice supply crisis. They must also be full of integrity.
