Here’s Why We Shouldn’t Rely on Vietnam for our Rice Needs!

By Manny Piñol

Secretary of Agriculture

This attached article, published in May 2016, should remind our policy makers that relying on imported rice supplied by Vietnam, Cambodia (via Vietnam) and Thailand is a very risky and dangerous proposition.

(https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/china-el-niño-are-killing-the-mekong-river)

The control of the Mekong River which is the main source of irrigation for Vietnam and Cambodia is not the only threat to the stability of foreign rice supply.

Here are two major threats:

1. Climate Change has shown that El Niño or long dry spell could hit any country in Asia without enough warning to enable countries to prepare.

What if Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia suffer from harvest losses because of climatic disruptions, including El Niño?

Even if we have the money to buy, there would be no available rice supply in the world market and assuming that there would be available supply, could we outbid China in buying all the remaining rice stocks?

2. The population growth of the Philippines is at 1.7% per year, meaning there will be more mouths to feed every year.

The sad truth is that we are not the only country with a growing population.

Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Pakistan and India, which are all rice exporting countries now, also have growing population.

Just like us, their farming areas are not expanding and will in fact shrink because of the sprouting of human settlements.

It is as certain as the sun will rise tomorrow that 10 years from now, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Pakistan and India will no longer be able to export the same volume of rice that they ship out today.

They have to feed their growing population as well.

The point I am raising here, which I have raised in many occasions in the past, is: “Yes, let us allow imported rice to come in to fill up the supply shortfall.”

But the policy to just rely on imported rice and ask our rice farmers to diversify to other crops is a death trap.

This is a shortsighted view which will kill the rice industry and drive away farmers from the rice fields.

The next generation of Filipinos will surely curse us for this misjudgement prompted by a myopic view which focuses on fleeting and fast-changing economic numbers.

I hope and pray that mine will not be a voice in the wilderness.

Amen.