Rice Shortage: Causes and Prospects

Recently, a PDI Editorial chronicled how the global food crisis threatens political and social unrests around the world. It made some predictions on the far-reaching, dire consequences of the food plague. Most importantly, the editorial identified the root causes of the rice shortage:

The feared global food crisis has become a painful reality. The most palpable aspect of the food crisis is the shortage and resulting high world prices of rice, the staple food for about three billion people, or approximately half of the world’s population.

What has caused the current rice shortage?

First, the rate of population growth has outstripped the rate of growth in food production in some developing regions, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Second, less rice is being planted in some countries as land becomes exhausted or otherwise unsuitable for cultivation or is converted to other uses such as subdivisions, malls and resorts.

Third, water shortage poses a problem as rice yields depend critically on water. A study by the International Water Management Institute suggests that by 2020 one-third of Asia’s population could face a water shortage.

Fourth, droughts, pest infestation, the spread of plant diseases and other creeping disasters drastically reduce rice production.

Fifth, rising consumption in emerging countries has created increased demand on the global cereal supply.

Sixth, the expanding biofuels industry has caused the conversion of ricelands to corn and other crops that are sources of biofuels.

Seventh, the growth of the middle class in China and India has increased the demand for meat which requires the consumption of more feedstock.

But as much as it remarkably point out the reasons, it also offered serious reform strategies and solutions to bring this problem to its end:

The rice crisis appears to have caught the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo flat-footed, and in the past two weeks or so it has been panicking, begging the usual sources of rice to increase their supply to the Philippines. The administration is worried that the country might not have a sufficient supply of rice in the lean months in the second half of the year.

But after finding solutions to the problems in the short term, the government has to draw up a comprehensive program to solve the country’s perennial rice problem over the long term. The government should take note of the World Bank statement that food prices will remain high throughout this year and 2009 and will not return to the levels of early 2000 at least until 2015.

A comprehensive rice self-sufficiency program will have to make more land available to rice farmers. At the same time a rational system will have to be followed in the conversion of agricultural land to other uses.

New irrigation networks have to be constructed all over the country to make possible the cultivation of rice even during the dry season. More certified and hybrid seeds have to be used to almost double the yield per hectare. More fertilizer, preferably organic, will have to be required to realize the full benefits from hybrid seeds.

The program should also provide for the control of waste all through the food system, including the point of final consumption. It should also provide for incentives for food production, but, as has been suggested by former undersecretary of agriculture Ernesto M. Ordoñez, the government should strike a balance between farmer and consumer interests.

The Arroyo administration has been lucky this time. But unless it adopts an integrated, comprehensive long-term solution to the rice problem, it may have to deal with social unrest in the near future.