(Second of Two Parts)

By Felicito C. Payumo May 20, 2008 Management Association of the Philippines During the last 50 years, thanks to research and advances in technology, farmers and ranchers were able to increase the world food supply faster than the growth of human population. But in the next 50 years, Mr. Norman E. Borlaug, an agricultural scientist and Nobel Peace Prize awardee, believes that future gains in food production will be harder to come by than in the past. Many of the cultivated lands, such as those in western countries, are already producing close to their theoretical potential. Global consumers are likely to require double the level of today’s agricultural production-from 5.5 billion to 11 billion gross metric tons. And we will continue to rely on irrigated lands to contribute a disproportionate share of world food supplies. Zoom in on the Philippines… now referred to by some analysts as ground zero of the global food crisis. The country is, no doubt, in a worse fix. Domestic rice production has been 12 per cent below domestic consumption over the last 6 years, with importation at the rate of 1.2 million metric tons a year. But this year, we are importing 2.1 million tons. The last time we were self-sufficient was in 1971 under the Masagana 99 program. Our farmers do not get price support; the National Food Authority (NFA) could only buy less than 1 per cent of production in the last few years compared with 5 per cent absorption rate in the 80’s and 10 per cent in the 70’s. So the farmers are forced to sell to their creditors who haul their produce straight from the field at very disadvantageous prices. As for input subsidies to farmers…well, the Joc Joc Bolante tale tells the whole story. The future is even bleaker. Not only is our population increasing, the per capita consumption of our 87 million people has been growing at 2.6 per cent a year. And the price of imported rice at $1,100 per ton is up three-fold since a year ago. Since rice is thinly traded (only 27.5 million tons or 6.4 per cent was traded) a reduction in exports by the supplier countries to assure supply to their citizens can lead to further spike in prices. And certainly, their decision to form an Organization of Rice Exporting Countries (OREC) does not bode well for us. What should be done? It is time we abandon our dependence on trade over production for self-sufficiency. I am afraid that a UNDP report that there would be an uptick in production in the rice paddies of Asia next year might lull us back to complacency. Occasional blips do not alter a trend; unless some big technological, political and social breakthroughs happen, the future shall be a mere extrapolation of the stark realities of the present. The course of history, while not always linear, needs a radical alteration to change its trajectory. Irrigation- a vital need Everyone knows our farmers have many needs- from credit facilities, input subsidies, post-harvest facilities, etc. but the most vital has been the most neglected: irrigation facilities. Borlaug states that we would have to depend mainly on irrigated lands. Former Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Escudero agrees, as he decries denigration of Filipino farmers’ abilities when compared with their Asian counterparts; our farmers only lack Government support, particularly in irrigation facilities. (Thailand, on the other hand, has a much larger area of irrigated lands.) Hybrid seeds and fertilizer are ineffectual without proper irrigation. Therefore, the need to rehabilitate non-functioning systems and adding more irrigated areas is a no-brainer. Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap finally conceded to Senator Mar Roxas that we need an additional 3 million tons to feed ourselves but has to count on 2.5 million hectares including rain-fed areas that give less than optimal yield. I recall having co-authored a Law (RA 6978) that mandated the National Irrigation Administration to undertake a 10-year program to construct irrigation projects in the remaining one million five hundred thousand (1,500,000) hectares of un-irrigated but irrigable lands. It was approved on January 24, 1991 during the 8th Congress; that means we should have irrigated all irrigable lands in 2001 if the Government did its job. But some figures report only 43 per cent of irrigable areas have functioning irrigation systems, with the balance either completely un-irrigated or with systems that are silted or in various state of disrepair. I can attest to this. The silted Tangilad River irrigation project in Samal, Bataan, built at a cost of hundreds of million pesos, has not been able to irrigate its entire service area. Despite the complaints from farmers, the NIA has not done anything about it. But what about the un-irrigable areas located mainly in the uplands- those that depend solely on precipitation because they are either too far outside the service-area or lie on higher elevation to be serviced by existing creek and river impounding systems? Going by Secretary Yap’s statement, we have at least an additional 1-2 million hectares of un-irrigable lands. Shall we just let talahib or cogon grass cover them? Shovelling for their supper I thought we could learn from the villagers of Ajit Pura in the arid state of Rajasthan, India. The Economist published an account “ of 42 women and men scraping earth into panniers, and hoisting them to their heads, walk the contents up to a low embankment rising on the edge of the work-site. It is designed to slow run-off of monsoon flood-water, encouraging more of the precious liquid to infiltrate Ajit Pura’s dusty soil. This helps irrigate a few peasant plots for a year or two, before the embankment is washed away. They call them micro- water catchments. The program to build them under the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme provides 100 days of work to poor Indian folks who are deemed to be self-selecting because only the genuinely needy would agree to work under the sun for an equivalent of $1.50 a day. Should we not do the same by dotting our countryside with such catchments or small water impounding projects (SWIP) using, mainly, manual labor? After all, the precursor of India’s NREG was the Emergency Employment Administration (EEA) of President Diosdado Macapagal. We don’t have the Mekongs, the Yangtzes, the Niles or the Ganges that meander across the continent over thousands of miles as they irrigate and fertilize alluvial plains and deltas, such as the recently flooded Irrawaddy in Myanmar. Being an archipelago, monsoon rains that pour on our island mountaintops cascade down within hours through the plains to the sea. But we can build hundreds of thousands of SWIPs- small catchments that can reduce the volume and force of runoffs as they hold and store water for irrigation during the dry season. The other beneficial effects are manifold: as the aquifer is replenished, ground water table rises; erosion and siltation are minimized; flooding is controlled, and trees are easily propagated when planted along the embankments. The increase in farm income doubles after two years. But the more lasting benefit is institutional strengthening as the community work and learn together improved fertility and soil management. We have such SWIPs in the Philippines with the project in Talugtog, Nueva Ecija prominently mentioned in Google. The challenge is in replicating it into hundreds of thousands SWIPs distributed among 40,000 rural barangays to irrigate our otherwise un-irrigable lands. At a minimum of 3 SWIPs per barangay, we would have 120,000 projects employing manual labor in the countryside. Since, the projects can be inspected for proper completion, ghost workers would be prevented. This beats the dole-outs that the Government plans to do; since money is given away free, no one knows how much gets stuck in the hands of the giver. If the Government has money to throw away at the rate of P500 per poor family plus P300 per child up to a maximum of 3 or P1400 to 300,000 up to 3 million poor households, or to distribute food coupons to the poorest families in urban villages which the DSWD is still finding hard to locate, why not make them shovel and earn their supper? That is teaching them how to fish! F.C. Payumo was three-term Representative of the Ist District of Bataan and former Chairman and Administrator of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority.