The rising cost of food affects everyone, and it’s important to recognise that many processors and traders add their mark-up to the price of food from the grower to the consumer. That’s why cultivating your own vegetables is a great way to save money and ensure that they are fresh and organic for a healthier lifestyle.
If we consume Philippine rice, it’s likely that it was grown by some of the 2.4 million impoverished Filipino rice farmers who earn an average of 285 to 331 pesos a day from growing and harvesting it, which is equivalent to US$6 a day. Can that be called fair earnings?
Why is rice so expensive, leading to widespread hunger?
The Philippine population stands at 115 million, and a survey by the Social Weather Station [SWS] earlier this year revealed that 14.2 percent of them, or 17 million Filipinos, experience hunger on most days. Many of the extremely poor survive on just a handful of cooked rice and soy sauce or a small piece of fish. In urban areas, some resort to consuming “pag-pag,” a dish made from recooked scraps of uneaten restaurant meals. The avarice of the corrupt and privileged who control the Philippine food supply, particularly rice, and the politicians who enable this situation, are responsible for the widespread hunger and the super high price of rice.
Hunger is the fuel of revolution, as recently witnessed in Bangladesh. After 15 years of tyrannical rule by the rich elite, a short-lived peaceful revolution and street demonstrations for social justice occurred, leading to the overthrow of the ruling regime.
If we consume Philippine rice, it’s likely that it was grown by some of the 2.4 million impoverished Filipino rice farmers who earn an average of 285 to 331 pesos a day from growing and harvesting it, which is equivalent to US$6 a day. Can that be called fair earnings?
During these events, the Bangladeshi military killed over 200 protesters, and the prime minister was forced to resign and flee the country. Mohammad Yunus, a civic leader and founder of the grassroots Grameen Bank, was asked by the student leaders of the revolution to lead an interim government.
In the Philippines, a large number of people are experiencing hunger and despair despite the presence of 79,000 Filipino [dollar] millionaires and 18 [dollar] billionaires. This stark contrast highlights the significant inequality that contributes to hunger in the country.
Tasting the rice grown by the suffering farmers might satisfy our physical hunger but we need to hunger for justice and equality and feel compassion for the victims of social injustice and government corruption and take social action. We can join a movement or non-government organisation working for social justice and farmers or indigenous people’s rights.
If you are striving to be a true Christian and have faith that goodness and action for social justice will overcome greed, inequality, selfishness and injustice, then that true faith in action will overcome corruption. Anything less is just an empty show where faith is dead [James 2:15-17].
As we celebrate the 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines. The Chaplaincy to Filipino Migrants organises an on-line talk every Tuesday at 9.00pm. You can join us at:
https://www.Facebook.com/CFM-Gifted-to-give-101039001847033
Perhaps you did not eat Philippine rice after all because the rice-buying cartels export most Philippine rice worth US$1.56 million dollars to Middle Eastern countries and Bangladesh.
Filipino farmers still only earn about 315 pesos while most Filipinos pay an average of 54 pesos per kilo of rice, almost US$1 a kilo. That is very expensive and makes huge profits for the importers and traders
Filipino farmers still only earn about 315 pesos while most Filipinos pay an average of 54 pesos per kilo of rice, almost US$1 a kilo. That is very expensive and makes huge profits for the importers and traders.
After the harvest, the tenant farmers pay their debts, medicines and other needs and give a share to the landowner. Not much is left over. So, the tenant farmers borrow money to feed their families and borrow to buy the fertilizer and pesticides for the next planting. The cycle repeats itself. The poor farmers remain poor.
Unable to grow enough rice for its needs, the Philippines imports US$1.63 billion dollars worth of rice annually, mostly from Vietnam [US$1.38 billion], Thailand [US$71 million], Pakistan [US$53 million] and India [US$32 million]. If it is true that we are what we eat, then Filipinos are truly Asians.
The rich importers with government approval and licenses grow richer while the Filipinos grow poorer and hungrier. The dictators of the food supply bring hunger to almost 17 million Filipinos. The shameful truth is that this nation cannot feed itself. The Philippines is the biggest rice importer in the world and rice is its 13th most imported product.
If ever there is war and shipping lanes are blocked for even a month or more, the Philippines would starve without rice imports.
After the harvest, the tenant farmers pay their debts, medicines and other needs and give a share to the landowner. Not much is left over. So, the tenant farmers borrow money to feed their families and borrow to buy the fertilizer and pesticides for the next planting
How about Japan, will they starve? No, because the Japanese have a phobia about hunger. They grow rice on only 1.7 million hectares of rice paddies and produce 7.45 million metric tons of February 2024 statistics.
Japan has reached the level of 99 per cent self-sufficiency in rice production. Considering that 80 per cent of Japan’s landmass is actually mountains, which is a stunning achievement feeding a population of 124.60 million Japanese people.
The Philippines, with five million hectares of land nationwide, produced about 20 million metric tons of rice in 2022 for a population lower than Japan at 115 million Filipinos. Yet, due to exports, it is far from self-sufficient in rice unlike its Asian neighbours.
Why is that allowed to happen, a cabal of rice traders control and profit from the rice supply, and 115 million unknowing and silent Filipinos suffer super high prices for rice?
Indigenous peoples are subsistence farmers, that is, they and their families survive by consuming all they grow. If they have a surplus and they don’t own a market stall, they must sell to local traders for a low price.
The Philippines, with five million hectares of land nationwide, produced about 20 million metric tons of rice in 2022 for a population lower than Japan at 115 million Filipinos
There are 2.4 million farmers in the Philippines and 30 per cent are poor, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority. That is 720,000 impoverished agriculture workers. Subsistence farmers live above the hunger margin but when there is a climate disaster, they can fall below it when crops fail due to floods or drought.
The mining industry in the Philippines continues to expand with 38 new corporations registered and approved with 103 more in waiting. Many are expanding into ancestral lands with government approval.
The military is deployed to quell protests by the indigenous people when mining corporations move in and go digging up forests and polluting rivers. Community leaders and workers and environmentalists are frequently harassed, threatened and even killed, especially when indigenous leaders refuse to sign away their people’s ancestral land rights.
This is likely the reason why the government has stopped awarding Ancestral Domain Titles to the indigenous people.
Let all good people stand together for social justice in action and do good and oppose evil, and with real faith, be convinced that one day we will win.
Father Shay Cullen
www.preda.com
