BY IKE SEÑERES
WE will never achieve food security not unless we become a net exporter of rice. That is my own personal view, and I am open to discussion about it.
No matter how many months of rice stocks we will set aside as our reserves, that will never be enough to ensure food security, because that could run out in the event of a prolonged emergency, and there will never be enough time to import the supplies that we need quickly enough. As I know it, many countries measure their food security in terms of years of reserves, and not just in months.
Too many experts have already said that at least two regions in our country are capable of supplying our rice requirements nationwide, if only they could fully get the three critically needed resources namely irrigation, post harvest facilities and farm to market roads.
With the exposure of the pork barrel scam, it would not be too difficult to imagine that corruption is the probable cause why these three resources have not been put in place, more than a hundred years after our Republic was born. It would also not be too difficult to imagine that corruption is also the probable cause why some officials would rather import rice instead of producing it locally.
Irrigation does not require rocket science. I am sure that we could irrigate 100 percent of our arable lands if there is no corruption and if we could have the political will to do it. It is easier than sending a man to the moon, and we do not even have to build space ships anymore because other countries have done that already.
Of course, irrigation requires electricity, but it also does not need a rocket scientist to figure out that the flow of irrigation water could also produce electricity. Obviously, there are already too many alternative sustainable sources of electricity now, so much so that there is no more excuse not to irrigate, because the power is already available.
If electric power is already available for irrigation purposes, the only other component that is needed are the water lines, nowadays generally understood to mean the blue PVC pipes that are already so commonly used.
Having said that, I could not understand why our irrigation engineers would still prefer to build irrigation canals, a technology that is about as old as the Roman aqueducts. Is it because irrigation canals would cost more and therefore there could be more public funds that could be stolen? Or are these engineers in bed with the canal builders who are not too keen of blue pipes?
Borrowing somewhat from information and communications technology, it is actually possible to make water distribution “programmable and addressable”, meaning that the flow of water could be “programmed” where it is supposed to go, and the “address” is the location of where it should go.
This is no rocket science either, because the Israelis have been using this technology in their farmlands for so many years now. The secret is in the solenoid valves, and this too is also not rocket science because any engineering student knows what it is.
Post harvest technologies would generally mean those technologies that are used in reaping, baling, collecting, drying, sorting, bagging and storing rice grains. All of these technologies could be automated by using programmable logic controllers (PLCs), devices that could be categorized as high grade, heavy duty industrial computers, as opposed to personal computers (PCs).
Although it is more complex than home and office computers because it is already used in farm and factory automation, it is still not rocket science, and there are many Filipino engineers who are good at it now.
For so many generations now, we Filipinos have gotten used to using sacks and bags to pack and transport rice. It seems that there is no other way of doing it, and we are not looking for other ways of doing it. For obvious reasons, bags are still needed for retail sales, but it is about time that we start replacing sacks with the vacuum method for storage and transport purposes.
One advantage of the vacuum method is the reduction in wastage brought about by spillage and by the infestation of rats and insects.
I do understand the need for farm to market roads, but I also understand that in a demand driven market economy, roads could easily be built if the business is good. This could be a chicken and the egg situation, but assuming that the rice farmers will be making money from the sales of their produce, they themselves will be able to afford the building of roads, which need not be cemented right away.
For whatever it is worth, there is a technology now for building roads with the use of soil stabilizers, a method that costs a lot lesser than using cement.
Perhaps our government officials do not realize it yet, but there is actually a direct connection between rice production and water. Not just irrigation water in particular, but water in general and for all purposes. Imagine if we have enough supplies of rice, but we do not have enough water to cook it with.
Just to complete the equation, we also have to plan for the energy that is needed to cook the rice. Hopefully it will never happen, but we should plan ahead to avoid the triple whammy of not having enough rice to cook, and not having enough water and energy to cook it.
The upper class might not notice it yet, but the middle class is already feeling the pains of buying LPG at continuously increasing prices. The time will come when the middle class will not be able to afford the price of LPG, as it is happening now among the lower class. It is about time that we look at food security not only in terms of the food that we eat, but also in terms of the energy that we need to cook it./PN
