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Relief in Manila After Japan Agrees to Sell Rice
Marlon Ventura spreads harvested rice on a tarpaulin to dry in Nueva Ecija in the Philippines, which is the world's largest rice importer.
(By Enrique Soriano -- Bloomberg News)
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Philippine rice farmers said Japanese rice was welcome but would offer only short-term relief for the country's chronic deficit. Local production falls about 10 percent short of local need every year. The country's 92 million people eat about 33,000 tons of rice a day.
"The 200,000 tons of rice is good only for six days. It's a band-aid solution," said Jaime Tadeo, head of the National Rice Farmers Council and a farmer from the province of Bulacan.
Food insecurity, Tadeo said, is largely the result of the government's failure to spend money on infrastructure such as roads and irrigation systems that would allow rice growers to keep up with the demands of the country's fast-growing population. "You cannot rely on other countries to feed your own people, because they would surely let you get down on your knees," he said.
Imports from Japan, Thailand and Vietnam, which would augment the local harvest in October, should be enough to tide the country over until the end of the year, Sen. Angara said.
But he said chronic shortages would continue unless the government invested in long-term solutions. He said the last time the Philippines had a rice surplus was in 1967-1968.
The National Food Authority, the government agency that imports rice, has been selling cheap rice to poor Filipinos at just over half the commercial price. The agency has long been mired in corruption scandals and is deeply in debt, but without the cheap rice it sells, many Filipinos would go hungry.
The government has allocated about $116 million this year to 300,000 poor families in 20 provinces to help them buy rice. It also announced about $1.2 billion for irrigation, road, fertilizers, high-yield seeds and credits to farmers but has not yet released any of the money.
"Funding must be consistent," Angara said, noting that a succession of Philippine governments have had a "haphazard approach to agriculture."
Harden reported from Tokyo.
