Tagbilaran City - Skepticism about the sustainability of Bohol’s rice self-sufficiency blueprint, or Rice Accelerated Enhancement Response (RACER), continues to grow as civil society organizations (CSOs) question its priorities. RACER’s Bohol Seeds Assistance Program (BSAP) got the bulk of the Provincial Government’s PhP 13.786 million appropriation to subsidize and encourage farmers to plant hybrid rice to address the Province’s remaining 17.7% rice self-sufficiency gap.

“We are alarmed over this development”, says Wilhelmina Pelegrina, executive director of SEARICE, a non-government organization working on the conservation and development of local seeds together with Bohol’s farming communities. “Providing input subsidies for hybrid rice is not a sustainable solution to achieve rice self-sufficiency and address the rice crisis,” Pelegrina added.

The Provincial Government intends to shoulder the remaining PhP1,400 farmers’ equity for every 20-kg bag of hybrid rice seeds on top of the Department of Agriculture (DA)’s PhP1,500 subsidy to cover the 2,000 hectare-target for the Wet Season of 2008.

“At a time of crisis when everybody is tightening their belts, it is ironic that the Provincial Government is spending on hybrid rice,” said Alywin Darlen Arnejo, SEARICE’s program coordinator in Bohol. “The Provincial Government is not only subsidizing hybrid seeds, but also the required synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. This in conflict with the Provincial Organic Development Plan,” Arnejo added.

Since 2005, SEARICE has criticized the Government’s subsidy program on hybrid rice. It has argued that despite massive subsidies and promotion of hybrid rice, the program has failed to reduce the country's rice importation and to convince farmers to adopt the technology. In its research, SEARICE noted the 50-99% dropout rate among hybrid rice farmers from 2004-2005.

“A more sustainable solution to the rice crisis is to support numerous local varieties, a number of them red rice, such as Japan red, MB, COFA GC 7 red and CFPRA CS 17, which farmers have selected and bred themselves. We should take pride that our farmers were able to develop varieties that do not only produce yields that are comparable with those of hybrids but which suit Boholano’s preferences," Arnejo added.

October 29, 2008

by Teresa L. Debuque

Anomalies concerning the Department of Agriculture (DA)’s hybrid rice program have been going on long before the Commission on Audit uncovered the Php218.7-million scam in the DA’s Ginintuang Masaganang Ani (GMA) program.

As early as 2005, the Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment (SEARICE), a Manila-based non-government organization (NGO) that promotes farmer-led crop breeding, had been calling attention to irregularities in the implementation of the GMA program, particularly the promotion of hybrid rice in the country.

In a 2005 study conducted by SEARICE in four provinces in the country, it uncovered evidence that master lists of farmer recipients of hybrid rice seeds had been fudged. SEARICE found that in many cases, farmers named in the master lists were either not residents of the barangay in which they were registered, or were not hybrid rice farmers at all. On the other hand, a number of farmers who should have received the hybrid rice package had been excluded from the master lists. The COA confirmed these inconsistencies in its earlier (2005 and 2006) reports on the DA.

SEARICE also raised concerns that the Php544 million that the DA had received to pay for hybrid rice seed subsidies might have been diverted for other purposes. The Php544 million is part of the recovered ill-gotten wealth of the family of deposed President Ferdinand Marcos, which had been allocated by the Philippine Government to finance the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR)’s land acquisition and distribution (LAD) operations. Speculations that this money had been used to bankroll the campaign of Administration candidates in the 2004 elections were fueled by the fact that following the massive infusion of funds into the GMA Program, the area planted to hybrid rice, as well as the number of farmer beneficiaries, went down rather than up. The timing of the transfer of funds from the DAR to the DA, or just before the May elections, had further heightened such suspicions.

SEARICE’s and the COA’s unfavorable findings on the GMA Program are supported by the World Bank (WB)’s negative assessment of the program in 2007. In its 2007 Report on the Philippines’ Agriculture Public Expenditure, the WB said that “the [Hybrid Rice Commercialization] program resulted not only in the inefficient and over-use of under-priced seeds and other inputs but also in the misallocation of limited public resources…”

Just as damningly, the GMA Program has failed to make good on its promise to make the country self-sufficient in rice and to improve the welfare of rice farmers. From 2001, the year the GMA Program was launched, the country’s rice imports have risen at a steady clip, despite massive government spending on this rice-self-sufficiency program. In 2001, the Philippines imported 739,428 metric tons of rice. Today, seven years later, the Philippines is still nowhere near being self-sufficient in rice, and in fact, now finds itself in the grip of a rice price crisis. It is importing 2.1 million metric tons of rice, making it one of the biggest rice importers in the world. This belies the claim made by the DA in November 2007 that the GMA program has saved the Philippines Php13.9 billion in rice import cost.

The Government has poured in both money and manpower into the effort to promote hybrid rice. Yet, large numbers of Filipino farmers have reportedly abandoned growing the hybrids in favor of their old varieties. The disadoption rate among hybrid rice farmers, which has ranged from 68 percent to a staggering 99 percent, was pointed out as early as 2005.

Farmer adopters have complained of the uneven yield performance of hybrid rice, which they attributed to the poor quality of seeds supplied to them. They have also cited hybrid rice’s greater susceptibility to pest infestation and diseases, and the consequent higher risks of crop failure.

Despite these criticisms, the DA is determined to extend the GMA program until 2010. The Hybrid Rice Commercialization Program has been restyled and now goes by the name of FIELDS (Fertilizer, Irrigation and other rural infrastructure, Education and training to farmers, Loans, Dryers and other post-harvest facilities and Seeds of high-yielding varieties), but the DA’s strategy remains unchanged.

In April 2008, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo announced its plan to invest P 43.7-billion in the rice sector through the FIELDS program. SEARICE says that unless fundamental changes are made in the way this program is run, it would soon be mired in corruption, just like its predecessor. Rice self-sufficiency for the Philippines would remain a distant prospect, and poor farmers, which ought to benefit the most from the program, would end up poorer than ever.

SEARICE is pushing for the elimination of seed subsidies, which have cost the Government billions of pesos with precious little to show for it. Instead, SEARICE is advocating that the government adopts strategies that strengthen farmers’ access to production resources and to technologies that reduce their dependence on external inputs particularly seeds.

October 29, 2008

by Teresa L. Debuque

In April (2008), Filipino consumers were queuing for cheap, rationed rice as government officials tried to deny reports of a rice crisis. Young and old, especially from urban poor communities, lined up under a sea of umbrellas, sweating while counting spare change for the three-kilogram limit per person. By midday, sometimes earlier, the sacks of rice were empty. 



President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, meanwhile, announced the P43.7-billion Fertilizer, Irrigation and Infrastructure, Extension and Education, Loans, Dryers and other post-harvest and post-production facilities, and Seeds (FEEDS) program, a support package for the agriculture sector aimed at food security. 

The government later unveiled the complementary Rice Self-sufficiency Plan aimed to boost rice yield that would match the country's consumption by 2010. The government promised to make the leap from top rice importer to rice self-sufficiency in two years. 



Agriculture and policy experts, both in government and private sector, however, said the Arroyo administration's subsidy-driven program was a "quick fix" to the rice crisis, not a sustainable rice sufficiency plan. 

With heavy subsidies, the FIELDS-powered rice master plan was an attempt at doing the right thing and playing politics, consequently leaving much room for political largesse, critics said. 

Of the P43.7 billion fund, seed subsidies will get the second biggest allocation at P9.3 Billion, bigger than the funds earmarked for irrigation. 



In 2006, the Senate questioned the move when the Department of Agriculture (DA) asked for the approval of a P408-million subsidy for hybrid seeds. 

" Baka pagdating dito sa 2007 ay meron na namang provision. Maraming nagrereklamo nitong subsidy na ito, ha (When 2007 comes around, another provision might come out. There were already complaints about this subsidy)," former Senator Franklin Drilon warned Agriculture Undersecretary Jesus Paras during the budget hearing.



"This is the last year," Paras replied. Agriculture officials assured Drilon six times during the hearing that the subsidy for hybrid seeds would end in 2007.

Source: Balmes, Florian T., "In the face of rice crisis, Arroyo opts for quick fix through P43-B program," June 2, 2008, GMA News Research.

Filipino farmers are refusing to plant the Bacillus thuri ngiensis (Bt) corn, citing their negative experience when they tried it from 2003 to 2006, the Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment (SEARICE) announced last February 13, 2008. 

“The overwhelming majority chose to plant non-Bt corn varieties, a trend that amounts to market rejection of Bt corn technology,” said Agnes Lintao,
 SEARICE policy officer who spearheaded the research.

Lintao belied the claim of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agricultural Biotech Application (ISAAA) that 200,000 hectares of corn 
production areas nationwide were planted with Bt corn in 2006.

Out of the 790 farmers surveyed in three provinces, only three percent planted Bt corn during the first cropping season of May to September of 2006. The 
same study also showed that none of the respondents replanted Bt corn after using it for the first time.

“Most of the farmers interviewed in the three provinces were not convinced of its claimed benefits of higher yields and pest resistance,” said Lintao.

The group’s survey showed that in Isabela, the highest corn-producing province, a mere six percent of farmer-respondents planted Bt corn.

In Bukidnon, the second highest corn-producing province, the adoption rate was less than one percent. In North Cotabato, the fourth largest
corn-producing province, there was barely three percent farmers’ adoption, the survey showed.

“High cost was the top most reason cited by the farmers for their non-adoption, including those who chose not to repeat the planting of Bt corn
during the period 2003 to 2006. Despite the hype about this biotech crop, farmers remain unconvinced,” Lintao said.

Lintao also said that the ISAAA has been misleading the public about the real status of Bt corn adoption in the country, going so far as to refer to the Philippines as one of the “mega biotech” countries in the world where Bt corn is being widely used.

“Their figure is highly misleading because this is not even the actual sales they achieved. There is no way to verify the actual volume of sales of Bt
corn seeds since the DA-BPI [Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Plant Industry] does not require the companies to produce this report. However,
 DA-BPI never tried to correct the erroneous and misleading use of data,” Lintao said.

ISAAA is set to present the Philippines’ successful adoption of genetically modified corn in Brussels today.

Source: Apanay, Ira Karen, "Filipino farmers reject adoption of Bt corn," February 14, 2008, http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2008/feb/14/yehey/metro/20080214met5.html