i just saw the questions for my final exams in one of my subjects and i think that my bone marrow or whichever system of my body which produces blood needs to work doubly hard because im suffering from an extreme case of nosebleed. we are given 48 hours to formulate our answers on this but since i have work on monday, i only have 24 hours to do magic and come up with not only intellectual but also legally acceptable answers. ive read the case twice and i dont think i want to read it again, just yet. so let me talk of a topic more serious than my other entries yet less brain wracking than my exam.
let me write about rice. yesterday, we had a speaker from the international rice research institute who talked about the effects of out-labor migration on rice farming and gender roles in selected provinces in luzon. among other things, she found out in her study that out-labor migration helps rice production since remittances from migrant workes provide economic aid for their family members who are engaged in rice farming ergo they have more money to buy farm equipment, fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, etc. also, out-labor migration empowers women because they have an increased role in decisionmaking mostly on matters concerning household and farming operations.
the current shortage on rice supply is not part of the presenter's study but since she was representing irri, she was asked the ever famous question, "bakit kulang tayo sa bigas? dito pa pala natuto ng rice farming and thailand at vietnam pero bakit tayo pa ngayon ang nag-iimport sa kanila?" the presenter wittingly said, "thats also the same question we are asking ourselves in the institute and hopefully we could find an answer to." she also shared about this hypothesis they had in the institute about the country's archipelagic nature as a reason of our difficulty in producing a supply of rice adequate for the country's population.
i dont want to contest that. i do not have the scientific knowledge and experience on the study of rice production so i just cant contest that. besides its just a hypothesis. but coming from a family of farmers, i have my own understanding of the problem.
we dont have enough rice because our farmers are just not capable to do so no matter how they want to. farming is not a very profitable business. from the tilling of the soil (which in some provinces are still done with a plough and carabao just like the one they did in amazing race asia), to seedling preparation, to rice planting and up until the harvest season, a relatively huge capital is needed for the equipment, labor, fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, etc. an ordinary farmer who do not have an alternate source of income could not possibly finance all these expenses and would thus be forced to resort to loans from owners of agricultural supply stores and rice millers.
during the rainy season, farmers would normally face a serious problem on how to earn back their expenses since 1) typhoons would have destroyed their crops or 2) they have harvested a substantial quantity of palay but they cant sell it at a decent price. in our case, we have only started using treshers and dryers a few years back but before, when mechanized farming was just dream, i remember our palay transforming from gold to grey then to black because they are stored wet. because of the constant raining, there's no way for us to dry them so theyre placed in the stock room until the mighty sun comes out. if we're in no luck, we could see roots sprouting from these palay seeds in just a few weeks or they would just rot. so what would an ordinary farmer do? its either he prays really hard for the sun to come out or sell some of it at a low price. if still, the sun doesnt come out, sorry na lang, sell and sell and sell at a low, lower, and lowest price. fyi, you cant mill palay and turn it into rice without drying it first. so what does this mean for the farmer: lugi. poor farmer.
but during summer season, farmers would not have much problem in earning back their expenses since there's less typhoon and drying is easy. but then again, you would not want to sell your palay just yet. the laws of the market tells you so. there's a lot of supply so buyers, normally the millers, would buy your palay at a low price. so you have to wait until there's less supply and the buyers would be willing to buy your palay at a higher price. or if youre a big time farmer, you might want to have your palay milled and sell it as rice which normally allows you to earn more. but as ive mentioned earlier, if youre a normal farmer who dont have an alternate source of income, you have to sell it because you need the money to pay for your debts and you need money for your day to day expenses. and also, higher prices of rice does not necessarily mean high because the buyers (normally the millers) would tell you that they couldnt sell it in manila at a higher price because people would rather buy the cheaper rice imported by the government than our locally produced rice. ang saya di ba? so what happens to the farmer? sorry na lang ulit, mas mura kasi ang bigas na ini import ng gobyerno eh. during the summer season, farmers earn back what they spend on rice production (farming to milling) but they wont have that much profit to 1) sustain them until the next harvest season and 2) to pay the debts theyve acquired during the rainy season.
so what happens? the cycle continues. ordinary, small time farmers get more loans from rice millers until they have so much debt that they are forced to make their lands as collateral which, in many cases, they lose ownership of. or they sell it. or if theyre quite lucky, they would have kids who would work abroad and in such case, the result of the study mentioned above would apply. they could adapt mechanized farming which would allow them to relatively control their losses due to natural phenomena. and if theyre more lucky, they could even become millers. otherwise, kawawang magsasaka. sorry na lang, ang galing mag-isip ng gobyerno eh. they would rather spend on importing rice than helping our local farmers improve on their farming techniques. and if the governments of vietnam or thailand decide to cut the quantity of rice that theyre exporting to other countries to ensure that they would have rice sufficient for their people, our own government would urge its dear people to cut down on their rice consumption. putik! mahal na mahal talaga ng gobyerno ang mga tao and theyre quite creative, thinking out of the box. pinagdadiet na lang ang mga tao kesa tulungan ang mga magsasaka. para bang pag kulang ang libro, sasabihin ng gobyerno, bawasan nyo na lang ang pagbabasa nyo.
and now, people are asking why dont we have enough rice. funny.
No comments:
Post a Comment