What Rice Farmers Need

by Paulino Jose Misa

While farmers are apprehensive about the implementation of the Rice Tariffication Act, assuring a support price as the main pillar of the IRR does not seem quite as reassuring as focusing on other provisions might be.
This is such an uninspired trader-centric orientation that is like putting a band-aid on a gash that needs stitches.
Yes, price is the traditional "bottom line" that success or failure is measured by but mainly focusing on it hardly addresses the true burdens the farmers must shoulder. We must jump out of the age old "kalakaran" box we have gotten so used to and try something new.
It would seem that focusing on LOWERING THE PRODUCTION COSTS and a careful study of the tariffs rates and how they would be balanced and applied would actually be the real key to a beneficial implementation of the law rather than basically relying on the simplistic setting of a set buying price.
By simply lowering the production costs, the single biggest threat to the farmers - being undercut by cheap imports - could be virtually eliminated in a relatively short period of time.
And this would surely also surely result in the INCREASE in hectarage and production which would be the true road to a self-sufficiency we must, but cannot believe we can ever, attain.
The practical view would really have to be that we must somehow be able to COMPETE with the price of imported rice instead of simply relying on artificial government market subsidies, a sure road to disaster.
If other countries can do it, is there really any reason why we can't except for lack of vision and appropriate action?
But where to start?
What actually would to be the greatest, most practical and effective single measure that the DA could focus on is to use the funds generated from the tariffs to provide FREE SEEDS and FERTILIZERS to the rice farmers, not as almost like an afterthought mentioned in passing but as THE main pillar of the program.
This would provide a multitude of benefits that would far exceed what a one-dimensional price-support and rice buying program, which still places most of the risk & burden on the farmer, could ever accomplish.
This would immediately hit so many birds with one stone that even a few billion pesos invested in this to start with would immediately make a huge difference. Proceeds from the tariffs could then make this a permanent policy.
Basically, the idea is to take much of the burden and uncertainty of rice cultivation from the farmer and spread it out among ALL the stakeholders to the benefit of EVERYONE.
One of the main reasons for diminishing interest in planting rice is the relatively costly recurring investment required for every planting. This is money that could go to better education and a higher standard of living.
It is also the main reason why farmers in places that are regularly hit by typhoons cannot seem to improve their lot despite doing their utmost. It is bad enough that a crop is lost to a typhoon along with other damage. It is how to get the next crop planted that compounds the problem. And if the money used for the lost crop was already borrowed in the first place, what then is the farmer to do?
Sure, there is the "usual" government response and aid to the affected but this is more often than not too little and too late for too few of the afflicted despite the best efforts and intentions. And is this really the best we can do for something that happens to many places EVERY YEAR?
Farmers would ideally simply have to register their hectarage devoted to rice so an allocation can be made to cover their seed and fertilizer requirements. This would also provide a basis to forecast prospective harvests more accurately.
More importantly, this would ensure that the use of rice fields are MAXIMIZED and REGULARLY planted regardless of the success or failure of the crop due to natural disasters, allowing the farmers, as well as production, to recover much more quickly.
In case of success of the crop, a portion of the harvest may even be given back to the NFA while this could be automatically condoned in cases of calamity.
Farmers would ideally simply have to register their hectarage devoted to rice so an allocation can be made to cover their seed and fertilizer requirements. This would also provide a basis to forecast prospective harvests more accurately.
Another way to compete with cheap rice imports would also be to plant higher quality rice which would then NATURALLY command a better market-driven price.
This would finally create a much more stable, positive situation for farmers and would even promote and encourage mechanization that would boost production & income even more.
Mechanization is one of the missing links that the big rice producing countries have managed to achieve. It has failed to take off in the PH even as the availability of farm labor has considerably diminished as more and more of the younger generation choose a different lifestyle.
No amount of government programs to provide tractors and other machines can really succeed over the long-term for the simple reason that once a calamity happens, there is no more money to pay for maintenance or operating expenses & repairs, much less any amortizations on any loans. Any money they may have saved has to go to financing the seeds & fertilizers after basic needs if there is to be any prospect of future income.
Even if these machines are just handed out by the government, as they are so few and far between and not commercially available, even just finding spare parts and mechanics to fix them becomes an insurmountable problem especially in the more far-flung areas.
On the other hand, if farmers are spared from the burden of having to buy their seeds and fertilizers, then they would be more than able and willing to finance whatever they can save to buy modest, affordable machines which would increase production and save on time and labor. They would also be more able to pay any loans that may be given for them.
Those who are now selling seeds and fertilizers would then also not be displaced as they could either supply the seeds and fertilizers to the government or shift to selling these now affordable and necessary machines and tools as well as the spare parts and the mechanics to fix them.
If we can somehow make the effort to give free college education as well as more health benefits, is it not about time that we FINALLY give our long-suffering farmers the support they REALLY NEED which will in fact even result in more IMMEDIATE & TANGIBLE BENEFITS FOR ALL?
And it all starts simply from FREE SEEDS & FERTILIZERS.
How hard would it be?