Tuesday, April 01, 2008 [ manilatimes.net ]
Malacañang wants to stop the conversion of prime farmlands for uses other than agricultural and to repeal the truck ban to avert a possible rice shortage, the National Economic and Development Authority said Monday.
Augusto Santos, the agency’s director general, said President Gloria Arroyo during last week’s Cabinet meeting told them to adopt the measures to prevent the possible crisis in the staple.
“The government will be vigorous in stopping the conversion of farmlands for commercial development,” Santos told reporters.
Modernization of Philippine agriculture will also help arrest rice scarcity, President Arroyo told international financial and business leaders in Hong Kong also on Monday.
“We have recognized that farming, not just in the Philippines, but in many parts of Asia, needs to be modernized,” the President told an annual investors forum organized by Credit Suisse.
“We have been spending unprecedented amounts in our agricultural sector—irrigation, seed support, research and development,” she said. As such, Mrs. Arroyo added, the country is expecting this year a 7-percent increase in rice production. The bigger harvest, she said, could help the Philippines protect itself against spiraling global food prices.
Rice is a political commodity in the Philippines, and any fluctuations in prices and shortages in supply could potentially rouse unrest, analysts have warned.
Last week, Manila signed a deal with Vietnam to supply 1.5 million metric tons of rice this year to avoid a shortage, and crack down on illegal rice trading, and has also bought stocks from Thailand and Pakistan.
A combination of bad weather in Bangladesh, pests and disease in Vietnam, and political problems in Myanmar—until the 1950s the world’s top rice exporter —has pushed the price close to $1,000 per metric ton.
The level has not been seen since scientific breakthroughs of the “Green Revolution” in the early 1980s boosted yields and has since helped keep prices below $400 per metric ton.
The recent rises had been matched across a range of agricultural commodities, as increased global demand along with a boom in growing crops for fuel instead of food has pushed up prices.
A small demonstration was held near where Mrs. Arroyo was speaking on Monday, the second during her three-day visit to Hong Kong that began Sunday.
Around a thousand overseas Filipinos, mainly domestic workers, on Sunday called on the President to resign over allegations of corruption, economic failures, and extra-judicial killings.
Mrs. Arroyo welcomed a proposal from local government units for them to help distribute and sell government rice, the job of the National Food Authority (NFA).
Eastern Samar Gov. Ben Evardone, the spokesman for the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines, said the details of the proposal are being threshed out.
“Basically, the objective of the proposal is to prevent diversion of commercial rice and to ensure access of consumers to NFA supply,” added Evardone, who is with the President in Hong Kong.
The idea also caught on with the country’s Roman Catholic bishops.
Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez said he is open to another proposal that the Church help the government distribute rice. He suggested that Malacañang also ask the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines itself to join in.
Iñiguez said he sees a need for critical collaboration between the Church and the government in programs intended for the poor.
At present, the Philippines has been losing its farmlands to residential-subdivision and golf-course developers, particularly in areas outside key urban centers, causing the government’s food self-reliance programs to suffer.
Data from the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics showed that farmlands in 2002 stood at 9.7 million hectares, or 3 percent lower than nearly 10 million a decade before.
The data also showed that agricultural-crop areas in 2005 stood at 4.07 million hectares, down by 1.4 percent, or 56,200 hectares, from 4.126 million the previous year. Areas planted to palay also fell to 4.07 million hectares in 2005, from 4.13 million in 2004, with 50 percent of the total of the agricultural-crop areas declining in the same period.
Santos said President Arroyo will also order the Metro Manila Development Authority to lift the truck ban for those delivering basic commodities.
“Lifting the truck ban will help lower the prices of basic commodities,” he added.--Darwin G. Amojelar, Angelo S. Samonte, Anthony Vargas, Sammy Martin And Afp
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