Rice Crisis in the Philippines - Temporary Solutions

Rice crisis again? Now everybody is blaming the farmers for not planting rice, the government for not supporting the farmers, the Chinese-Filipino palay buyers and millers for manipulating the farm-gate prices, or the rice traders who have been either caught or suspected hoarding rice. Now this is where the problem originates. We are now currently in crisis and people are either blaming each other or lately addressing long-term solutions when the crisis is already in our kitchens. Is this problem really unpredictable months or at least a year before it occur? Will the P5 billion grant or subsidy to rice farmers released by PGMA solve our problem that is already in our table?

Short Term Problem
Logistically, rice crisis can be predicted months before it occur and solutions could have been addressed months before. We should at least be prepared for this kind of events. Obviously, we do not have accurate forecasting methods, if there is any forecast at all.

Short Term Solutions
It seems that it is already too late to address the root causes of this problem. GMA's subsidy to rice farmers of P5 billion will not have results right away. It would probably take 1 to 2 years before we can feel its effects, if ever the money would even reach our farmers at all. There is not much we can do for now other than prepare ourselves to have major lifestyle changes in the next 1 to 2 years.

I remember way back in the 90s when we also experienced this same crisis. We survived through the crisis by adopting to it. Yes, we adjusted our needs by going into some alternative food sources:

1. Shifting to white corn grits. In the Visayas, esp in the provinces of Leyte and Cebu, corn grits were always a part of some people's staple food even during normal times. To many of us who were not used to eating rice, we gradually include a portion of corn grits in our diets so we could reduce our rice consumption. During those times, the price of corn grits was only about half to that of rice.

2. Including Banana (Saba) in your diet. The poor families in the provinces always inlcude banana as major part of their meals at least once a day. However, many average families in the province still enjoy eating saba with bagoong from time to time especially at picnic times during summer. This may not be applicable to Manila folks but would probably help reduce our national rice demand.

3. Potato / Camote and other root crops. This root crop has been said to have more nutrients than rice. I am not a nutritionist so I opt not to elaborate on that. Be careful though, because if you are not used to eating potato, your digestive system will turn into a biogas system - oh, a free substitute for LPG if you can collect them all :-). Kidding aside, mashed potato at fastfood are way too expensive than rice. But if you have access to the countryside, they are almost given away for free. There are lots of other rootcrops that can be an alternative to rice. Just a little sacrifice and we will all get through all these.

4. Burgers / Pandesal / Pancit. Finally, one that is readily available to Manila folks. We can actually reduce our rice consumption by shifting towards these kinds of foods. Burgers may still be more expensive than rice today, but it has been forecasted that rice would peak to more than P60 per kilo in the next two years. So go ahead and do your own cost analysis. Let us just hope the price of flour will not race up with that of rice.

5. Look at the positive side of this crisis. Remember that our rice diet has been one of the major causes of obesity and many carbohydrate related ailments in the Philippines. So think again, this might be a reminder for us to watch our diets. We can actually survive through this crisis just by being diet-conscious :-).

So there you go. Just a little sacrifice. Hopefully everything will get back to normal soon. Just hold on while the government is trying to compensate for its failures.