Food security, not rice crisis, threatens RP — expert

It is unlikely for the Philippines to face a rice crisis next year, a food and agriculture expert said, noting that food security is the more immediate problem of the country. The threat to food security is not because of global demand but because of a “negligible increase in farm productivity," Rolando Ty, executive director of the University of Asia and the Pacific Center for Food and Agri Business, said in a study released to media Wednesday. “It is highly [impossible] to encounter another rice crisis. In the long run, it is food productivity that we all [must] pay attention to," Ty said. Ty attributed the slight increase in farm productivity to climate change, soil degradation, high input costs, and reduced spending for research and development in the past decades. Thus, there is a need for a more intensive, science-based research to increase farm yields, Ty said in the study. There is also a need to funnel more funds to research and development for drought-resistant and submergence-tolerant rice varieties, he added. Long-term food security is possible if the government will address the need for higher budget for climate-change adaptation and if it refocuses on diversification of food sources to less-water intensive crops like corn, banana, sweet potato or camote, cassava, and taro or gabi, according to the study. Enhancing irrigation system efficiencies and investments in watershed management and reforestation are parts of the solution, Ty added. —JE/VS, GAMNews.TV