Economic Issue - Rice Crisis

Davao Norte exec braces for rice crisis

by JMD Abangan

TAGUM CITY (3 April) -- Like other local chief executives, Davao del Norte Governor Rodolfo P. del Rosario wanted his province to "firmly brace for the looming rice crises" as he allocated P2 million to assist rice farmers.

The funding taken from this year's budget is expected to benefit 3,635 farmers who are cultivating a total of 18,695 hectares of rice field.

In his 1st State of the Province Address (SOPA), del Rosario bid to maintain enough food llevel in Davao del Norte with rice sufficiency estimated at 77 percent along with 300 hectare-vegetable industry "which can produce 18,000 metric tons" based on 2007 records.

The P2 million funding for rice farmers is under the Economic Development and Environment Protection and Rehabilitation thrust coined in an acronym RDR WHEELS.

A mythical vehicle to development, RDR WHEELS is del Rosario's agenda which stands for Road and Infrastructure Development; Development of Cooperatives; Reforms in Governance and Peace and Order; Water and Electricity; Health, Sanitation and Social Services; Education, Culture, Sports and Human Development; Economic Development and Environmental Protection and Rehabilitation; Livelihood Skills and Development; and Spiritual and Moral Recovery.

Economic Development gets the second largest share at 20 percent of the budget pie of the province.

Del Rosario said the share would be spent for improved agricultural productivity "to match the growth of the industry and services sectors."

"We mobilized our budget to provide combined modern strategies to help our farmers in farm inputs and implements, technical skills interventions, research and extension and product diversifications to increase their share of income," del Rosario said.

But Gerry Rivera, chair of the Provincial Farmers' Action Council said the P2 million is quite a small amount if equally shared by more than 3,000 rice farmers especially when spent on production.

"Sa seedlings lang daan, kulang ra na," he said.

Davao del Norte may not be a major rice producer but it is a chief producer of bananas for export.

The banana industry however has impinged on rice production areas of the province.

According to the raw data of the Crops Division of the Department of Agriculture (DA) XI an estimated 9,000 hectares rice farms in Davao del Norte have been converted mostly into banana plantations as of 2007. (PIA) [top]

Currently, how much is the price of rice per kilo? When did this changes started? And why it continues to increase? These are the questions we are trying to raise.

Way back a couple of years, we started to feel the effect of changes of the market price in rice in the Philippines. The continuous and non-stop increase has led to economic crises. The traders as well as the consumers were challenged on how to deal with this event. Even if the government will arrange for funds to assist rice farmers, this is not enough solution to sustain their necessities generally the inputs. Now, is the government fully aware of such issue considering that in every increase of price of majority of the Filipino consumers are affected?

This economics issue is definitely alarming especially to the marginalize people of the country particularly my town, Kapalong. Kapalong is a first class municipality in the province of Davao del Norte of which 90% of its local income is derived from agriculture. At present, rice production in the locality is decreasing because most of the farmers had switch to banana export production. In effect the supply of rice is no longer enough for the consumption of the people in the locality. Hence, this happening seems to be one of the reasons of such increase.

Accordingly, another contributory factor to such event is the continuous increase of inputs such as seedlings, insecticides, fertilizers and labors. The higher the inputs of production, the higher the price of a product, this is actually the real scenario of the economy. Relatively, the government on the other hand, must do something to equalize the economy, that is, if the price of the commodity increases the payment of wages must also increase so that the people will not be affected economically.