Rice Watch and Action Network (R1) urges Congress to stop the hybrid
rice subsidy in the 2008 budget of the Department of Agriculture following
previous reports of misuse of funds and failing to support it claim of
increase in production yield and farmers? income.
The group of rice farmers and non-government organizations also
proposes an increase of P158 million in the budget of Philrice to support
organic agriculture in the light of increasing concern on agriculture?s
contribution to global warming.

?Congress should stand by its position in last year?s budget hearing
that this year would be the last for hybrid rice subsidy,? said Jessica
Reyes-Cantos, R1 lead convenor.

Cantos cited the Senate committee hearing on the agriculture budget on
November 9, 2006, wherein former Senator Franklin Drilon asked for the
assurance of the DA that ?this would be the last time the government is
going to support HRCP?. Ginintuang Masaganang Ani (GMA) Rice Director Frisco
Malabanan gave Congress the assurance based on the recommendation of the
Technical Working Group headed by PhilRice.

However, in the recent sub-committee budget hearing on agriculture,
Malabanan reported that the government?s subsidy for each bag of 20 kilos of
hybrid seeds is P1,000 covering the production target for 2008 at 500,000
hectares.

?Assuming that a hectare of rice land will need 1 bag of hybrid rice
seeds, the government will spend P500 million for hybrid rice subsidy
covering 500,000 hectares or 12.5 percent only of the total rice lands,?
said Cantos. The total area of rice-harvested land in the country is 4
million hectares.

Cantos cited the 2007 World Bank report on the public expenditures of
the Department of Agriculture that criticized the largest slice of
production support (about 85 percent) allocated to the GMA rice program, in
particular for the HRCP. The same report found the sizeable amount of money
and public human resources spent on HRCP did not produce much net social
benefit.

The farmers? adoption of hybrid seeds has been slow, reaching peak
coverage of 11 percent of total rice area in 2005. The size of the target
area was bigger than the actual area planted with hybrids because of seed
deterioration and geographic/time mismatch between demand and supply. While
the rate of hybrid seed adoption increased from 5 percent in 2004 to 11
percent in 2005, the drop-out rate revealingly ranged from 50 to 99 percent.

?We hope that the government will finally heed the glaring figures and
opt to diversify its program to include sustainable agriculture as one of
the options for the flagship programs and not limited only to hybrid rice
and GMOs. This will lessen the risks in case the flagship programs fail as
in the case of hybrid,? said Cantos.R1 is pushing for the implementation of
sustainable agriculture and rice farming practices through an additional
158.5 million funds that will be added to the budget of the Philippine Rice
Research Institute (Philrice). Cantos said lodging it under the Philrice
budget will facilitate easier and more transparent monitoring of expenses
rather than integrating in the bulk money of the DA. Moreover, Philrice
already has an existing unit for sustainable agriculture.

The budget will include P8 million for research and development that
will include climate change adoptable rice technology, P18 million for
additional personnel for extension services that will promote sustainable
rice farming practices and P137.5 million for production support that will
include organic fertilizer inputs and setting up of demonstration farms.

?This is really a very small amount compared to the accumulated
billions of pesos that the government devoted to its pet technology of
hybrid rice that have failed tremendously beyond its expected outcomes but
the agriculture officials continue to ignore,? said Cantos.

According to the report of the National Economic and Development
Authority (NEDA), agriculture accounts for 15 percent of the national GDP
and nearly 40 percent of employment in 2005. Rural poverty remains a major
component of total poverty as some 70 percent of the country?s poor live in
rural areas.

The average annual net income of a farmer is P16, 650 as of 2004 which
is only 20 percent or 1/5 of the annual household poverty threshold. Yet,
food spending comprises 44 percent of a family?s household expenditures.

?An alternate route to increase rice productivity is to tap the
technical capacity of farmers to utilize available local resources, such as
inbred seeds and organic planting materials. The farmers should participate
in the process of improving and sustaining rice production through research,
development and extension programs,? said Cantos.

According to Cantos, the growing concern over extreme weather
conditions also points to the need to look into the problem of climate
change. Agriculture is said to be a major contributor of emissions of
greenhouse gases, such as methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide. The
World Food Summit reported that chemical farming together with deforestation
is responsible for the 30% of carbon dioxide emissions and 90 percent of
nitrous oxide emissions worldwide.

?Before everybody in the world condemns agriculture, organic farming
has the potential to reverse those trends, and reduce carbon dioxide,
nitrous oxide and methane, that contribute to global warming. The long term
solution lies in the reduction of the use of fossil fuel,? said Cantos.


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