Recently, some quirks in the world’s supply and prices of such staples as rice, corn and wheat indicate that Philippine agriculture and the rice-eating Pinoys are in for a deadly rollercoaster ride.

There are a myriad things that we can blame for the decreased availability and the higher prices of food staples: Climate change, resulting in decreased food production even as the world’s population continually increases, faster-growing economies in India, Korea and China, conversion of food sources such as rice, wheat, corn and so on to biofuels, the high cost of oil. We will never want for things to blame. But we shouldn’t be playing the blame game; instead, we ought to be doing something about the problem. If any blame must be shared, it has to be our dependence on foreign sources for a great part of our rice supply.

Don’t blame the Department of Agriculture for a problem caused by external factors that have nothing to do with Philippine agriculture.

In fact, Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap has done what he could. Yap did a good job of raising crop yields—as demonstrated by the record harvest of 16.24 million MT despite the dry spell that had ravaged four of Luzon’s major palay-growing regions midway through 2007. Rice production in 2007 reached the highest levels ever in Philippine rice production history. Sadly, this is not enough.

For 2008, the DA wants to go for an all-time rice production high of 17.32 million MT, and chances are that Arthur Yap can do this with the government’s total commitment and record investments in agriculture and the DA’s intervention programs. Harvests this April-May period are expected to reach 7 million MT, or higher than the 6.7 million-MT output in the same period last year.

Also, Secretary Yap has been saying since late last year: "Even if we want to import, there is a possibility that there will not be enough stocks in the international market, so the challenge for us is to boost production volumes to the point of raising our self-sufficiency levels in these staples."

Jean-Pierre Verbiest, the country director for Thailand of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), had warned about this looming food crunch, and had laid out these initiatives for countries to contain this global threat: continued investments in agricultural infrastructure, research, and technology to develop new seed varieties and increase yields.

One measure that Yap experimented with in 2007 and institutionalized this year is a third palay cropping season via the DA’s quick turnaround (QTA) program, which expanded harvests by 20 percent despite the dry spell during the past semester.

The DA is pinpointing an additional 92,000 hectares of land for this year’s QTA program, which will utilize hybrid and certified rice seeds. Yap also got the President’s approval for a supplemental fund for the DA to plant with certified seeds an additional 600,000 hectares of rain-fed lowlands and low-yielding irrigated areas under the Accelerated Hunger Mitigation Program (AHMP) of Malacañang.

Another 400,000 hectares of land will also be planted with certified and hybrid seeds during the wet season in non-AHMP areas, and another 30,000 hectares will be identified for the planting of such seeds in newly restored or repaired irrigation areas.

Apprised by Yap on the global food crunch during a pre-Holy Week Cabinet meeting, President Arroyo had okayed a DA augmentation fund of P2.82 billion for a cross commodity expansion program that forms part of her administration’s array of initiatives to cushion the impact on Filipino families of this threat triggered by tightening supplies and rocketing costs of rice and other wage goods worldwide.

This augmentation fund is on top of the P1.5 billion of the regular DA budget that the President decided in February to frontload for infrastructure projects such as the repair or rehabilitation of irrigation systems, as part of Malacañang economic stimulus package.

President Arroyo ordered the release of this supplemental outlay for the DA and fired off a series of directives after hearing Yap’s alarming report before the Cabinet about supply shortfalls and price upswings in rice and other grains in the world market.

She further directed Yap to expand the DA’s hunger mitigation projects like the Gulayan ng Masa or backyard vegetable growing program, enhance its Tindahan Natin projects, and set up more barangay food terminals (BFTs) for the benefit of ordinary consumers as well as bagsakan or drop-off points in urban centers for the produce of farmers and fisherfolk.

In his report to the President and the Cabinet, Yap presented the grim realities on global food supply and consumption, including a World Bank study showing that food prices have increased by about 75 percent since 2000, and a United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report that 36 countries–of which 9 are in Asia (excluding the Philippines), 2 in Europe, 21 in Africa and 4 in Latin America–now require external assistance to cope with worsening food supply problems.

Yap informed the President that soaring crude oil prices have had a domino effect on transport and freight costs as well as on the cost of petroleum-based fertilizers.

Exacerbating the food supply and oil woes, he had said, are the conflict in certain economies between allocating food crops for human consumption or for biofuel feedstock–owing to the fast-growing global demand for non-fossil based energy sources–along with climate changes that have wreaked havoc on farm production worldwide.

After a Pagasa official bared during the DA-hosted Leaders Briefing that this year’s La Niña phenomenon will last until June, Yap ordered then that the DA advance its QTA program after the summer harvest, instead of after the wet season crop as in 2007.

Yap also instructed DA officials in charge of the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani (GMA) Rice Program to promote the use of aerobic rice and drought- and submergence or flood-tolerant rice varieties, which the DA will start producing in the dry cropping season for distribution and for buffer stocking.

The DA is now carrying out, too, measures to better operationally R&D (research and development) and rural extension programs as a way to bring new technologies on raising yields much faster to farmers and fisherfolk via state universities and colleges (SUCs) and LGUs.

As for consumers, Yap is putting on the fast track this year the establishment of more bagsakan or drop-off centers for farm goods in urban markets and barangay food terminals (BFTs) in depressed communities, as a way to cut trading layers that unduly jack up the cost of basic foodstuff and expand consumer access to quality, yet affordable commodities.

One gauge of Yap’s skills in consensus building was the move by over 40 provincial chapter presidents of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines to pledge their support for the DA’s banner programs, during that Leaders’ Briefing for the LMP that the Department hosted at the Century Park Hotel in February.

Yap expects to have its major initiatives and other self-sufficiency or food security programs fine-tuned at the National Food Summit April 4 at the Manila Hotel.

The food summit, along with the Department’s flagship programs for the agriculture sector, will benefit not only big traders and industry leaders, but small farmers, fisherfolk and consumers as well. It will target the setting up of more consumer-friendly BFTs and pro-farmer bagsakan centers across the country, to help small farm producers sell their products at higher profit margins while making food more available to low-income families at affordable prices.

In the early stages of the crisis Secretary Arthur Yap seems to have everything under control. Let us all hope that he continues to be on top of the situation even as the crisis will probably get worse before it gets any better.