A STUDY of international advocacy group Oxfam warned that rice yield in the Philippines will drop from 50 percent to 70 percent by 2020 because of climate change. It said rice-producing countries like the Philippines will be hardest hit by climate change, as a one percent rise in temperature will result in a 10 percent drop in rice production every year from hereon.
The Philippines is basically an agricultural country, although through the years vast swaths of agricultural lands have been converted to industrial, commercial or residential use. Still, agriculture remains an economic driver, and thus holds the key to the country’s economic development and progress. We are thus anxious of the future of Philippine agriculture and our food sufficiency.
Can we count on the government to promote the welfare and interest of the farmers?
At present, the government’s policy makes the country overly dependent on imported rice. It brings in cheap rice to augment the country’s food supply, instead of initiating programs that will actually help boost rice production and for the country to achieve the status of being rice self-sufficient.
Farmers are concerned on how the government will deal with a food crisis, the poor performance of the agriculture sector in the face of the global economic crisis and climate change which adversely affected the farmers.
It is high time – in fact, long overdue – that the government prioritizes agriculture, invest in the real economy and focus on how to improve Philippine agriculture.
