Just how critical are support systems to agriculture? The very first "land reform" areas in the country were in Central Luzon - Tarlac and Pampanga, to be specific – around the early 1970’s. Areas where the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People’s Army (NPA) initially gained a foothold. You would be amazed at how the sparse threats of getting shot could intimidate some landlords into becoming part of the "enlightened gentry" to participate in this communist-sponsored "land reform" program. According to the Maoist analysis, land ownership would liberate the serfs from poverty and their surplus would provide the basis for developing a national democratic economy. It did not quite end up that way though.

Within a few years, land ownership reverted back to the original land-holding class due to the absence of support systems. Owning land was one thing but having access to credit for inputs and capital to fund needed irrigation structures and post-harvest facilities was another thing. Even though ownership was dumped into the laps of the peasant beneficiaries, they could not capitalize on it to make a good living. Eventually, the landholders reacquired their properties. It got so worse that in some areas, in fact, official yield statistics could not be relied upon since the poor peasants were being forced to surreptitiously harvest the rice grains even before they ripened just so they could eat something for the day.

The Marcos-sponsored land reform fared no better for the same reason and even worsened the plight of the farmers as it introduced higher yielding rice varieties that were heavily dependent on expensive inputs such as inorganic fertilizers and pesticides. Many of these even destroyed the other food sources from the rice fields that farmers could previously rely on.

And, due to the lack of adequate support systems, post-harvest losses for grains continue to remain high, as much as 50 percent in some areas. Transforming the palay grains into polished rice is a long and wasteful process if you go by the traditional route of drying it by the roadside. The farmers and palay traders lose a lot of it simply from the repeated ritual of spreading out the palay from the sacks and putting it back in again until the whole thing is dry enough for milling. Mechanizing the whole process would be more efficient and would greatly improve the yield without actually adding anything but this seldom happens due to the lack of support systems.

And, it is not only rice and corn production where the absence of support systems is being felt. The fisheries sector, in particular, is very vulnerable. In places like Romblon and Palawan, islands teeming with fish, the only locally available specie is often the humble bangus, which is grown in fishponds. If you want something as classy as rock grouper, you have to go to a fancy restaurant. These places are teeming with fish and the small fishermen do catch a lot of those but they have no choice but to sell everything to the buyers who promptly ship them out to places like Manila. Fishing has its lean times and that is when small fishermen have little choice but to borrow money to live on from their favored buyers. That comes with a price – not just usurious interest rates and catch low prices but also the unbreakable dictum that everything the poor fishermen catches has to be sold to the buyer. Violate that and no more credit the next time around.

The current food crisis is a not just a reality check for the country. It is a serious warning that we must pay more serious attention to the complex and dynamic issue of food security. We may not collectively starve to death yet but the accompanying social upheavals will definitely have far-ranging consequences.