Rural Trader Blogs

The Aura of Rice - a snapshot of the rice industy in the Phillippines

Part of the commitment to being a Nuffield Scholar is to participate in a 42-day Global Focus Tour organized by Nuffield Australia. In my case this involves traveling with nine fellow Scholars – eight from Australia, a Pom and a fellow Kiwi – Gregg Pardoe from Gisbourne. As we travel from Canberra Australia to the Philippines for three days; Hong Kong overnight; China for ten days; Mississippi for five days; Canada for five days, Washington for three days; France for five days and end up in Ireland for the final five days, we are seldom separated. We eat together, share rooms and transport etc for ten virtual strangers and leaders in our home environments this has been a challenge that We have all had to rise to and is an evolving exercise in personal development in itself!!
 
Although I am off to a late start due to the reasonably full schedule and challenge of adapting to four different time zones in as many days, my intention is to share my journey with you all….
 
The Aura of Rice – a snapshot of the rice industry in the Philippines
 
We arrived into the Philippines to a hot steamy evening and a two hour drive to IRRI – the International Rice Research Institute located at Los Panyos .  Established in 1960 by the Rockefeller Foundation and Henry Ford it is the place for rice research in the world and has the world rice gene bank which holds more than 100,000 native and modified rice varieties from all over the world.
 
IRRI has three main functions: Scientific and genomic reproduction; plant breeding and production and has 208ha of land upon which it grows 60-80ha of production rice (double cropped) with the remainder of land used for research, campus etc.

As 70 percent of the world relies on rice for food and or employment, the rice industry is certainly far more important that I ever thought and IRRI is leading a ‘Green Revolution’ to enable rice producers to escape poverty but still produce good quality, nutritious rice for consumption and at an affordable price.  This is an enormous challenge – to economically and sustainably increase rice production using less water – the current amount of water required to grow one kilo of rice is 3000L.

The rice industry in the Philippines is dominated by the Low Land Irrigated system of farming - an intensive method of rice production that is constantly under pressure for land competition by urban industrial development. One of the greatest challenges for the Philippines is the increasing population and its status as the poorest nation with the biggest discrepancy between wealth in Asia. The agricultural wage is regulated at 234 piso per day - $2, this effects more than 30 percent of the population with the impact on pay parity between those who work at call centres, school teachers etc who can earn up to 20,000 piso per month.   

Approximately 70 percent of Philippino’s are catholic and the church has a huge impact on the way this country is now and where it will be in the future. Filipino families tend to be large and there is some concern that the population may get out of control, however with the suggestion that the Philippine’s economic strategy is exporting labor, this potential issue may be all part of the grand plan.

Cheers,

Mandi.