'Build, Build, Build' should include infrastructure to benefit farmers, Hontiveros says

MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Risa Hontiveros in a press release on Tuesday urged the administration to include rice infrastructure initiatives in the Build, Build, Build flagship program to ease strains on the agriculture sector. 

This, after the Department of Agriculture reported that some 1.2 million hectares of land still have no access to irrigation. 

"Kung gusto nating maging rice self-sufficient, mamuhunan dapat tayo sa rural infrastructure bilang parte ng 'Build-Build-Build' program ng gobyerno," Hontiveros said during the Commission on Appointments confirmation hearing for the appointment of Agriculture Secretary William Dar, whom the panel later confirmed.

(If we want to become rice self-sufficient, we should invest in rural infrastructure as part of the Build, Build, Build program of the government.) 

"Investment in rural infrastructure is needed to jumpstart rural development. I hope that the leadership of Secretary Dar will bring in more support for the agriculture sector to realize its full potential," she added.

Build, Build, Build is among the flagship programs of the Duterte to expedite infrastructure development in the country. 

Philippines is top rice importer

A report by the US Department of Agriculture-Foreign Agricultural Service in early November showed that Philippines surpassed China in rice importation to take the title of the world's top importer of rice three million metric tons of rice imported this year. 

This statistic comes despite the stark contrast between China’s staggering population of 1.4 billion and the 110 million in the Philippines. 

For Hontiveros, aspects of rice production such as irrigation maintenance, flood retardation infrastructure, farm-to-market roads, and food terminals only need development to improve productivity for farmers. 

She supported the DA's plan to expand its irrigation programs, saying that rice sufficiency efforts would be futile if the country's irrigation systems were not able to secure the water supply farmers needed to remain productive. 

Ateneo economics professor Ser Pena-Reyes, PhD in an earlier interview with Philstar.com said that rice production in the Philippines is still inefficient.

The combination of low productivity and high production costs has always held the country's agriculture industry back. But for the economist, this began with the country's natural resources. 

“We’re not agronomically endowed to produce rice as much as Thailand and Vietnam do. They have the mighty Mekong River to serve as a natural source of irrigation. We do not have that," he explained. 

Hontiveros called for Dar's office to look into possible upgrades in spite of these natural limitations. 

"Kailangan din i-repair ang mga existing irrigation systems kasi natatapon ang tubig at 'di nakaka-abot sa dulo," the Akbayan Senator also added.

"Kung walang patubig, matutuyot din ang kita at ang kabuhayan ng ating mga mamamayan. Government should not hesitate to pour more funding into programs which not only expand, improve, and rehabilitate our irrigation infrastructure, but also make it more resilient given the ongoing water crisis in many parts of the country."

(We also need to repair the existing irrigation systems because water is wasted without reaching the end. Without water, even profits dry up along with the livelihood of our countrymen.) 

Rice self-sufficiency a possibility?

Where economists have long preached that rice self-sufficiency is an impractical pipe dream, the Duterte administration looked to revive it first by implementing the rice liberalization law. 

The idea was simple: to replace all restrictions on rice importation and attain food security with tarrifs, while using the money to fund what they called the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF). By opening doors to foreign rice importers, the logic was to funnel the revenues earned into rice storage and research initiative programs. 

Pena-Reyes asserted that food security should be the broader goal rather than focusing on rice production and self-sufficiency. 

"It’s not just rice that we should be focusing on," he said. 

But farmers' groups have also pointed out the unique position of rice as a political crop in the Philippines, given its deeply-ingrained status in the country's national identity. 

Farmers have also bemoaned that the drop in domestic rice prices only served to exacerbate their current circumstances. 

"Filipinos are known in the world as a rice-producing people, thus, everyone should realize that this is a desecration of the very meaning of being Filipino," Pamalakaya national chairperson Fernando Hicap said in a press statement in November. 

As of the third week of November 2019, the listed farmgate price of palay was Php 15.52 per kilogram, according to data from the Philippine Statistics Authority. 

But farmers themselves say the actual costs, especially in far-flung areas, can go as low as Php 7 per kilo, much lower than their production cost of around Php 12.

Bantay Bigas spokesperson and Amihan Secretary-General Cathy Estavillo slammed the rice tarriffication law in a press statement on December 9 as "economic sabotage of the rice sector."

"[The law is] primarily triggering depressed farm gate prices as low as P7 per kilo this year, but the retail prices never dropped accordingly," Estavillo said. 

"The winners from this law are the private traders and importers, and the big losers are the farmers and consumers."