Rice as gut issue
Posted on March 23, 2008 - Filed Under General |
SOMETHING that’s closest to the gut of Pinoys now threatens to put everything going on in this country– NBN-ZTE deal, Lozada’s crusade, Lakas-Kampi merger, Villarosa’s acquittal, the smuggling issue brouhaha between congressmen and PASG chief Bebot Villar , typhoons, even Ben’s to die for ‘borjer’ – in the back burner.
Rice, the staple, the cereal that most Pinoys can’t do without in a day, now looms in scarce supply. And that is bad news, real bad news. The administration, quite naturally, won’t say it directly but the telltale signs are there: We’re importing rice from Vietnam, the President has suddenly allocated a whooping P1.6 billion to the Department of Agriculture to boost rice production and the grains agency, the National Food Administration, is nervously twitching as it calculates how long the available stocks in its bodegas could last..
There’s even Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap’s’ appeal to restaurant and fast-food outlets to try serving half-rice only to customers — ostensibly to avoid wastage in the case of diet-conscious people who take only a few spoonfuls of rice with their viand and leave a mountain of the staple on their plates to be thrown away. No, the problem is not uniquely Philippines, it’s worldwide. Dwindling rice supply is felt around the globe. The World Food Program says global rice stocks are at a 20-year low while rice prices are surging to a 20-year high.
The result is that leading rice producers like Vietnam, India and Egypt have had to restrict exports in order to keep their own local markets stocked and their domestic prices stable. Climate change that has altered crop production drastically, along with natural calamities are seen as the main causes of the growing shortfall in rice production. Growing population around the world, of course, is also one of the leading causes for the rice shortage.
We’d better have those irrigation systems repaired and fast, improve rice production techniques and tighten controls on hoarding and price manipulation before we come to experience fearsome, never-before-seen food riots occurring in the country, God forbid!
One easy thing you could do to help – Put only enough rice in your plate that you can consume. That simple act can go a long way towards conserving what little there is left in our rice supply holds till the, uh, passover?.
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