Self-sufficiency in food

Editorial, The Evening Paper
Issue of 15 January 1996

It says a lot about our priorities and values, the fact that the front pages of yesterday's morning dailies were dominated by huge photos of the returning half of a controversial, much-publicized, troubled coupling.

Buried in the inside pages and meriting no pictorial support whatsoever were snippets of news--reluctant coverage, one can almost feel--about government efforts to boost food production and avert a possible national food shortage in our immediate future.

In a struggle between food and tsismis, it is clear which one enjoys the distinct advantage, one unhappily supported, even fueled, by media. Is it already carved into the national soul and ingrained in our national mind--this preference for make-believe over reality, for showbiz over economics, for form over substance?

Maybe this explains why, even on the big screen, when we play out our fantasies, the cinematic creations that draw the crowds and bring in the money are not necessarily the ones that win the awards. But that, surely, is a subject worthy of another editorial.

For now, let us point out the intense activity going on in the area of agricultural development and food production. Late such intensity may be, after our countrymen had already spent a considerable part of last year lining up for imported rice or forking out more money than they should really be paying for every dining table's staple food.

It may be that people in government have finally realized that, other than merely being an occasion for changing the personalities at the helm of the country's food-supply chain, the repetition of a similar situation in the very near future may well lead to collapse of popular support.

The food-supply question is therefore being given the kind and amount of attention it has never gotten before. And about time, too. The Department of Budget and Management is releasing funds to finance increased irrigation and water impounding. Support projects like multi-drying and farm-to-market infrastructure will be receiving separate allocations. Food-producing regions hit hard by last year's series of killer typhoons will be rehabilitated. Thankfully, both government and private agencies dedicated to research and development in agriculture and agribusiness are also ready to contribute their efforts toward securing adequate food supply for the country.

We hope these efforts--which, by the way, still fall short of a comprehensive handle on the whole issue--at least point to one direction: that government is finally weaning itself, however slowly, from the idea of importation as the inevitable cure-all to our food problems. Those who have been following the global food picture know that in the next millennium, food will not only be in short supply on a worldwide basis, it will also be expensive.

Only food self-sufficiency will help us escape the specter of hunger and disorder in the future.

-- NBT