We Are Not Rallying Behind Our Rice Farmers! – William Dar

We are behind our PH farmers – and we are not rallying!

President of the national movement called InangLupa (Motherland) and Manila Times columnist William Dar has an urgent double call:

Let us rally behind our rice farmers.
And we should not waste time!

Those are the main messages of Part 2 of his column on the subject, "Let Us Rally Behind Our Rice Farmers," that appears on the 11 April 2019 issue of the Manila Times online edition (manilatimes.net).

This is a call to arms, as the Implementing Rules & Regulations, IRR, for RA 11203 or the Rice Tariffication Act, was signed Friday last week yet. He says:

I must say that the signing of the IRR for RA 11203 should be the starting point for our government and the bureaucracy, the private sector, civil service groups, nongovernment organizations, the academe, and the scientific community to rally behind our smallholder rice farmers and the whole industry itself.

And why is that? We have to protect our rice farmers from the harsh competition of Asian rices – because PH rice is very expensive. Compare these costs of production of rice:

PH rice P12/kilo
Thai rice P8/kilo
Viet rice P6/kilo.

How can PH rice farmers compete with their extremely high cost of production, which is double that of Vietnam farmers!

So, Mr Dar is calling on everyone – government, private sector, civil service groups, nongovernment organizations, academe, and scientific community – to rally behind our poor rice farmers and the whole rice industry.

Mr Dar says:

While the projects and programs under RCEF should be the anchors to make the country’s rice industry competitive, let us also give importance to existing initiatives for the industry that are undertaken by the government, particularly the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Department of Science and Technology (DoST), for our smallholder rice farmers.

As an agriculturist and a crusading writer myself, I am interested in those initiatives of the DA and DoST, among others, that focus on helping our rice farmers become competitive.

Meaning: Our rice farmers must reduce their cost of production drastically.

As I have already written, "It's the systems, stupid!" (08 April 2019, "SAKA Near UP Diliman As A Dual Study In Guerrilla Gardening & Journalism," blogspot.com). Systems, plural. To quote myself from there:

The production system:The inputs are expensive: hybrid seeds, chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides. Modern agriculture has been designed in favor of the chemical companies, not the poor farmers.

The marketing system:It has always been rigged in favor of the middlemen and so, with farmers, we will always have the poor with us!

I forgot to mention the input of irrigation water. Mr Dar says, "Since rice cultivation is water intensive, addressing the issue of irrigation is of utmost importance and much needs to be done immediately." Yes. But while you the farmer are waiting for irrigation water, here is my simpler & faster advice:

Truly enrich your soil with organic matter and this will take care of the moisture needs of your crops, despite El Niño.517 

PH Rice: When The Budget Is The Least Of Your Worries!

PH Congressman Leonardo Montemayor shares on Facebook the link to the BusinessMirror article "'Government Has No Money For P10-Billion Rice Fund'" by Cai U Ordinario & Jasper Emmanuel Y Arcalas (10 April 2019, businessmirror.com.ph). The report says:

Farmers may have to wait until the third quarter at the earliest to benefit from a fund that will consist of tariffs from rice imports, according to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).

That is what NEDA Regional Development Office Assistant Secretary Mercedita A Sombilla is saying. Miss Mercedita is talking about the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund, RCEF, that is supposed to be generated to help PH farmers become Asia-competitive. She is saying there are no funds available right now.

Actually, even if 10 times P10 billion were available right now as the competitiveness fund, PH farmers are still losers! Because the PH government has no Roadmap to Asian Rice Competitiveness.

Without that roadmap, we know where we are going?

In Lewis Carroll's story Alice In Wonderland, here is an exchange:

Cat: Where are you going?
Alice: Which way should I go?
Cat: That depends on where you are going.
Alice: I don’t know.
Cat: Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.

Our PH aggie officials are modern-day Alices in Wonderland who don't know where they're going, but they want to get there!

In that same BusinessMirror story, the Federation of Free Farmers, FFF, has "expressed dismay over the apparent lack of source for the P10-billion RCEF." FFF National Manager Raul Q Montemayor says the lack of funds shows that the government is "already shortchanging the farmers." I say, not really! The government is simply not thinking right for the farmers.

I've been writing about it several times already. This is how bad it looks when it comes to production cost of rice:

PH rice P12/kilo
Thai rice P8/kilo
Viet rice P6/kilo.

So, when the rice imports come in, anytime now, who among us Filipinos are going to buy local rice?

PH officials are simply thinking of subsidizing the farmers and, meanwhile, PH farmers are simply waiting for those subsidies. Nobody is doing something about farmer entrepreneurship.

If you want to help PH farmers become competitive in their own country, stop subsidizing them and start educating them how to be entrepreneurs, how to become business-minded, how to cut costs here and there. That's where those P10 billion should go.

Still: Even without any single peso out of those P10 billion for RCEF, even today we can now teach the farmers how to become competitive:

Cut costs of production – use inexpensive but effective fertilizers, and use inexpensive but effective pesticides. And learn to grow rice even with minimal water. In short, turn to organic from your inorganic ways!

How do I know all that? I'm an agriculturist, UP '65; I'm a teacher; I'm a wide reader; I'm the son of a farmer. My father did not know how to cut costs, but I thank God the son rises after the dark night and is sharing the light!517

PH – Growing More Rice, Growing For Less

You can see rice tarrification as a negative, but you can also see it as a positive.

That is exactly how InangLupa Movement President William Dar sees it. He explains his position in his column "Let Us Rally Behind Our Rice Farmers." Part 1 (04 April 2019, Manila Times, manilatimes.net):

After careful study and analysis, I see RA 11203 as a blessing to the country's rice industry, as it will also force the bureaucracy to rethink its strategy towards the industry, and put in place policies, programs and projects to truly make rice farming in the Philippines truly productive and competitive.

Rice tarrification has been forced upon us by international law; we have to follow the guidelines of the World Trade Organization, WTO, of which the Philippines is a member. But we must protect our rice from the competition of other Southeast Asian rices because now rice importation has been liberalized, and we know that Philippine rice is the most expensive to produce in Asia! As I have already written, quoting from another column of Mr Dar, these are the prices of rices: PH rice P12/kilo, Thailand rice P8/kilo, and Vietnam rice P6/kilo (10 March 2019, "PH Rice Tariffication Law – Billions For Buildup, But Not One Cent For Business!" Journalism For Development, blogspot.com). Like I said there, "Yes Sir, expensively produced PH rice cannot compete with Asean rices even in its own territory!"

Mr Dar says today:

Now is the time to rally behind our smallholder farmers to make our rice industry competitive vis-à-vis our Southeast Asian counterparts. I am strongly positive and enthusiastic about this possibility.

I myself have been trying to wake up the sleepy heads of our national rice officials to help Filipino rice farmers decrease their costs and increase their incomes (see my essay "PhilRice, How About Listening To The Ladies & Making Filipino Farmers Much Happier?" 07 March 2019, Journalism For Development, blogspot.com). The ladies are willing to help the gentlemen become business-minded.

Why is PH rice so expensive to produce anyway? Mr Dar says, "Obviously, the pursuit of rice self-sufficiency in the past decades could be faulted for the high production cost of palay." That is to say, "Never mind the cost, we need to produce more rice!"

There is something good and something bad in the liberalization of rice importation. Mr Dar says, "I categorically agree that rice imports will help lower and stabilize the prices of the commodity in the local market, thus contributing to lower inflation." That is good for the rice consumers; that is bad for the rice farmers – if they don't wake up and drastically cut their total cost of production!

Above image: With hybrid rice, PH farmers can become competitive, but they have to reduce their costs of farming.

Now, here's the possible solution as well as the possible problem. Mr Dar says:

I believe funds are better allocated to farmers of the crop who have the potential to become as competitive as their counterparts in Southeast Asia.

That is thinking inorganic farming – I am thinking organic farming.517

PH Farms Suffering Billions From El Niño Because "We Never Learn" – William Dar

At the Inquirer, Karl R Ocampo says, "Dry Spell Brings Farm Losses To P2.8 Billion," Inquirer.Net, m.inquirer.net, where the above image comes from). This story is in fact the banner headline of the print edition of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a copy of which on impulse I bought this morning. In the print edition, the subhead says, "Rice and corn farmers have borne the brunt of El Niño, which started more than a month ago and is expected to intensify in April. Among the hardest hit regions are Bicol and Soccsksargen, officials say."

And what does my favorite columnist say?
"We never learn!" (interjection from me)

Talk about timing! In his Manila Times column of today, "Achieving Water Security, Part 2" (28 March 2019, Manila Times, manilatimes.net), William Dar says (my emphasis):

All the while we all knew that an El Niño episode was coming this year and what did we do in advance?

Almost nothing. Or absolutely nothing.

What could we have done? Mr Dar points to the intelligent example of Vietnam, as early as August of 2018, whose agriculture ministry preemptively directed farmers in the Mekong River Delta to adjust their planting calendar, "enabling them to avoid the adverse effects of the dry spell, including seawater intrusion."

In contrast, in the Philippines? Mr Dar says:

Indeed, we never learn.¶ In 2015-2016, the country experienced one of the worst El Niño episodes that affected our agriculture sector severely. And we chose to wallow in amnesia.

Mr Dar is not saying it, but I am:

From the Secretary of Agriculture down to the technician in the field, there has been failure by government agents to serve the best interests of the Filipino farmers in so far as water security is concerned.

Warns Mr Dar – who is a BS Agriculture graduate (Benguet State University) and has a PhD in Horticulture  (UP Los Baños), as well as a 15-year experience as Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, based in India:

Rice imports are set to arrive into the country as the Rice Tariffication Law has already been signed... (Note that) rice farming has the highest water requirement among crops. So, this is actually the worst time for (Filipino) smallholder rice farmers to be hit by El Niño, as they will be facing competition from imports from Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam.

So? So, Mr Dar says, "Eventually, we pay the price." Actually, it's more like this:

We neglect our farmers and theypay the price!

Mr Dar says, no, cloud seeding will not help. Where do the farms store the rainwater? The rains will easily wash away those dried-up top soil (look at the above image again). I organic matter advocate say, that is because those bare soils have no organic matter component to hold not only the plant nutrients but also the water from the rains. If the topsoil is rich in organic matter, it will not be washed away even if rain water flows off.

We never learn!517

Summertime & Lack Of Water As The Burning Issue Of The Day

Philippines "lack of water"

Today, Thursday, 21 March 2019, in Manila I type the above line as my search words, including the double quotes, and Google gives me 9,800,000 results! Millions of webpages – that means that in the Philippines, lack of water is pervasive in the City, as well as in the Countryside. What do they have in common as the cause of water scarcity? I say I see:

Lack of consciousness in conserving water when there is plenty of it. The public complaining are the ones to blame for their water scarcity.

Look at my photograph above of a ricefield – the farmer has burned half of his field because the rice stubble interferes with his puddling of the soil for planting his rice. If the farmer only knew – if the Agricultural Training Institute, ATI, only taught him to convert the rice stubble into organic matter that will conserve the water in his field – I am assuming of course that the ATI knows!

Here we go again, William Dar seems to be saying in his new opinion piece in today's issue of the Manila Times (21 March 2019, "Achieving Water Security, Part 1" (21 March 2019, manilatimes.net):

News that water lack is hitting some areas in the country, including those that host farming, deeply bothers me. I mean, here we are again in a situation where we are "reactive," taking action only when a crisis manifests itself. What should have been done was anticipate the coming dry spell and make preparations, especially when water supply was still adequate or in abundance.

We do not conserve when we have plenty of water; we complain only when we run out of it.

Mr Dar says today, Thursday, the National Water Resources Board, will be holding the National Water Summit to discuss how the country can enjoy "water security." He says, "To date, agriculture accounts for about 80 percent of freshwater usage in the Philippines and approximately 70 percent worldwide." That tells me that where there is lack of water in the Countryside, you can blame the farmers 80% of the time!

I agree when Mr Dar says:

And here is the crux of the matter – unless we take steps to rejuvenate, preserve and improve the country's rivers, lakes, wetlands and watersheds from this year until 2025, the country would face a possible water crisis.

Yes, but I am not going to exonerate the farmer from the sin of commission of burning up his ricefield when he should be converting his rice stubble into organic matter to retain water on his field – which will also store the rainwater during the rainy days, as well as prevent soil erosion even during pouring rains. This is not to mention his wasteful use of water during land preparation and even long after.

And so I go back to my photograph of the farmer burning his ricefield, which he does not realize is reducing his soil's ability to store water enough for his crops. The farmer is burning his own Water Bearer!517