LEARN2: When an Agricultural Country Imports Rice...

Ironically, here in the Philippines (which is an agricultural country), we import our staple food of rice. No you are not dreaming...you are having a nightmare (gasp!)

According to the International Rice Research Institute (which is also ironically based in the Philippines),

"The Philippines is currently the largest importer of rice in the world, importing around 1.8 million tons of rice in 2008".

To make matters worse, there have been news of rice hoarding in our country as well! It is clear that technology alone is not the solution to food security. Haciendas and landlords still exist in my country (land reform is still an issue here in my country..but that is another topic for another day), allowing little personal development for the ones pouring their blood, sweat, and tears doing all the hard work of farming.  But let's give everyone the benefit of the doubt and focus on the main problem at hand.

Compared to developed countries, most of our farmers here in the Philippines have little or no background in tertiary education. Farming is taught to the next generation, inheriting both the land and skill with little regard for the new innovations and agrarian reform. To make matters worse, our country is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire AND Typhoon Belt, making food security tougher to achieve in the little available time suitable for farming.

There are two key innovations being implemented in the country right now:SMS advice for farmers and Rice Breeding

In the first link, farmers are given advice specifically tailored for their location; taking into consideration water supply, field size, annual yield, fertilizer use, etc. The technology makes use of SMS because it is the widely available mode of communication in my country (around 80% of Filipinos use a cellphone). It can also be used to alert farmers of relevant information - from approaching storms to scheduled cloud seedings.

Rice Breeding developed by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) makes rice variants more resistant to climate changes. Example varieties include flood-tolerant, salt-tolerant, and drought-tolerant rice plants

Another project of IRRI is the C4 Rice Project Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the project's aim is to develop a breed of rice which is able to photosynthesize faster with the help of c4 genes. It is an interesting research but it is still in the early stages of development.

According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, physiological needs are the most basic. food is the most basic thing that a person needs. Without it, self-actualization and social innovation would be impossible.

In other words, you can't do anything with an empty stomach!