Death knell

By: Reyshimar Arguelles

WE ALL love rice, so much so that we sometimes regard the Unli-Rice concept as the single most important Filipino innovation in recent memory. And that’s saying a lot, considering how much we pride ourselves as a food basket – a reputation we used to carry back when we had the capacity for overproduction.

Today, however, is different. We have become one of the world’s top rice importers even though there’s an abundance of domestic supply. At P7 per kilo, palay’s value continues to plunge as cheap imports from Vietnam and Indonesia flood the local markets. For all the toil they have had to endure and the numerous health risks they suffer as they tend the fields, Filipino farmers could barely eke out a living for what little grain they can harvest when production costs are at P12 per kilo.

This, of course, is unacceptable and it’s a good thing the public has taken notice of the malady that has haunted the agricultural sector for a little less than three decades now. Sure enough, our problems had already taken root long before they sowed the seeds of a crisis. Numerous administrations have attempted to address this problem and yet, the rice problem has become a tree that keeps on giving misery, sustained by big business, draconic international trade policies, and a political system that just doesn’t take this issue too seriously.

It’s no question that rice dealers wield considerable power over local prices. Over 174 companies have agreed to buy rice from foreign sources, with import volumes expected to reach a whopping 4.4 million cubic tons by the end of 2020, according to figures from the Philippine Institute of Developmental Studies. When this happens, the lives of farmers and consumers will rest on the palms of grotesque conglomerates.

This won’t be the case if it weren’t for the trade agreements the country had entered into. The death knell of the Philippine rice industry was sounded the very moment we entered the World Trade Organization and ratified policies that were aligned to its neoliberal objectives in 1995. Under the paradigm of greater trade liberalization, the WTO’s agenda was to enforce international trade rules and policies that were supposed to help the developing world build sustainable economic systems. Obviously, there’s a big difference between creating rational policies that actually help the agricultural sectors of poorer nations and selling the idea that cheap imports could help improve food security.

The country thought it had struck gold by agreeing to deals crafted by the organization’s framers. What it did was run the agricultural sector to the ground by displacing local producers and offering very little succor to an industry that had once flourished in the 1960s. Added to this is the fact that the country is held up at a corner where there’s not much else to do but agree to a compromise. The WTO operates on a consensus-based decision-making platform, which has been instrumental in eliminating tariff and non-tariff barriers which only benefit importers.

All these observations were summed up by the works of academics like Walden Bello who have been following the WTO’s detrimental policies instituted by its international framers.

But perhaps the biggest blow to the country’s rice industry would come from its lawmakers. In passing the Rice Tariffication Bill, the country will do away with quantitative restrictions on imports which, according to groups in the agricultural sector, have protected the rice industry from sinking. Although a salient feature of the bill is the allocation of a P10-billion rice competitiveness enhancement fund, the amount could hardly offset the effects of cheaper imported rice on local producers.

However, it will take time before the local rice industry could achieve optimum competitiveness. By then, importers will have done their damage. Unli-Rice will still be around, but our dependence on our local farmers will have evaporated.