SUCs and rice importation

“PH to import 250,000 tons of rice from Vietnam, Thailand” “Rice importation still needed, says PhilRice.”

When headlines such as these hog the front pages of major dailies, one is wont to ask: Why all the fuss on importation with no mention of production?

Some say that there is a need to import rice to feed the burgeoning population of the country, and to enable consumers access to more affordable rice. Others, on the other hand, aver that importation “aggravates the situation of the hurting rice sector” because farmers cannot compete with cheaper and usually subsidized rice imports. Controversies of this nature bring us to the role State Universities and Colleges (SUC) – Colleges of Agriculture play on rice production.

Erstwhile CHED Commissioner Carlito S. Puno stated in a Keynote speech “SUCs as Leaders of Economic Development” delivered during the Mid-Year Conference of the Philippine Association for State Universities and Colleges (PASUC) and in a “Symposium on the Rationalization of Public HEIs: Some thirty years ago, we taught the Thailanders how to plant rice. In five years’ time, they became selfsufficient in rice and in another five years, they became the world’s number one exporter of rice.”

In the same manner, 40 years ago there was hunger in South Korea so they sent their agriculturists to the Philippines to learn how to increase their rice production. Our engineers were also tapped to construct the first four-story building and other infrastructure projects in South Korea. In ten years’ time, the situation was reversed.

Commissioner Puno further observed that among our state universities and colleges, a good number are in agriculture. Our agricultural faculty members and researchers, he opined, are world-class academicians. We can see them providing leadership and expertise in international and regional institutions here and abroad. But why has the country’s agricultural sector not been so efficient?

Simply stated, why are we still importing rice despite the agricultural expertise of SUCs?.

Every national government administration promises to remedy this situation, Thus, a few years ago, the DA secretary assured the country that there will no longer be rice importation by 2013 under DA’s Agri-Pinoy program. The secretary told farmers, irrigators, local leaders, and various stakeholders at a Farmers Forum in Kalinga, that the Philippines will achieve rice sufficiency in three years and will stop importing rice from other countries. It is now 2018 and the recent headlines speak for themselves.

As to the SUCs’ rice production record, we take as sample a state university in the province — the University of Eastern Philippines, which celebrates its centennial anniversary today. Founded in 1918 as the Catarman Farm School, it metamorphosed into a National Agricultural High School, to a state college as the Samar Institute of Technology, later converted into the University of Eastern Philippines, a comprehensive university currently with nine colleges producing board topnotchers in nursing, engineering, teacher education, veterinary medicine, accounting; and agriculture, criminology board passers and bar passers

Rice production did not spread out much to the province. The agricultural school, however, had its moments of seeming abundance, ironically when the agricultural school was converted into the Samar Institute of Technology. Under the watch of its first president Lt. Col. Emeterio Asinas, faculty members and employees – from the president down to the lowliest gardener, were receiving a sack of rice and 2 dozen eggs every month, to the point that a few began selling rice and eggs in sari-sari stores. But nowhere was the plentiful rice due to the presence of the agricultural college in the university. And the same may be said of the presence of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the UP Los Baños, or any bigname agricultural school in an SUC. Not one can claim to have averted rice importation in a province, region and/or country because of its production.

What then is the answer to the past commissioner’s comment on the efficiency of the agricultural sector?

SUCs may claim that their main function is to teach and not necessarily to produce. In fact, the Chinese proverb, “Give a man fish and he will live for a day; teach a man to fish, and he will have food for life,” is now being paraphrased in the joke, “Teach a man to plant rice and he will know how to import.”

Time was when the SUCs tripod functions were Reseach, Instruction, and Extension. Now a fourth one has been added: Production, with many implications inclusive of manpower production, instructional materials, agricultural technology flyers research outputs, bookwriting, consultancy, and community services.

Rice importation they say, is not a technical question, nor an academic problem to be solved by the SUCs “world class academicians” and expert agriculture faculty and researchers.

So, to import or not to import? To produce or not to produce?

The question is political, to be addressed by the state and not by the academe.