‘I never told Filipinos to eat less,’ says agriculture chief

By Ephraim Aguilar
Southern Luzon Bureau
First Posted 17:55:00 03/24/2008
INQUIRER.net

LIBMANAN, Camarines Sur, Philippines--Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap clarified here on Monday that he never meant to tell Filipinos to eat less when he urged fastfood outlets last week to offer half portions of rice because of a looming rice shortage.

"I never told Filipinos to eat less," said Yap, who was here in Camarines Sur province to grace the launching of the Church-formed Bicol Sustainable Agriculture Network (BiSAN).

Yap said it is every citizen's responsibility to conserve rice, especially that 25,000 bags of rice are wasted every day, based on a study by the Food Nutrition Research Institute of the Department of Science and Technology.

Yap said it was the National Food Authority's suggestion that he urge fastfood outlets to offer a "half-rice-serving" option to its consumers who cannot consume whole-rice serving.

However, he said, he did not do it because of an impending rice shortage but because conservation would be of big help amid spiraling prices of food commodities.

Yap said there was no rice shortage, but only an increase in prices of the staple as caused by the increase of fertilizer and oil prices.

"The price of fertilizer has increased by 150 percent while the price of oil in the world market has reached more than $110 per barrel."

Senators warned on Sunday that an impending rice crisis might backfire politically if government failed to devise effective solutions to prevent rice scarcity.

Senator Manuel Roxas III on Monday also told the government to "get real" about the rice shortage problem and not to downsize the rice problem, which, he said, should be treated as a "calamity."

Yap, however, said simple market visits would tell if there is really an impending rice shortage.

"If you go to markets, do you ever see food rations and long (queues) of consumers? There is much supply of rice in varying prices and qualities," Yap said.

He also said harvest was increasing and boasted of a 16.3 million-metric-ton increase in rice production in 2007, which, he said, was a record high.

Yap said the NFA had committed 1.1 million metric tons of rice while a contract would be sealed with Vietnam on its commitment to import one million metric tons of rice to the country.

Yap said that despite an increase in harvest, production was still not sufficient, so distribution of rice in the market had to be strictly monitored by the NFA.

He said the NFA had begun investigating all its officials colluding with unscrupulous traders, who re-bag and re-mill government rice and sell it under commercial rates.

He said the country had a rice deficit of around 1.5 million metric tons of rice but was still 90 percent self-sufficient.

The BiSAN, a joint project of the Prelature of Libmanan Development Foundation Inc. and the Department of Agriculture, aims to support Bicol farmers and to promote organic farming.