DIVERSIFIED AGRICULTURE FOR FOOD SECURITY

DIVERSIFIED AGRICULTURE FOR FOOD SECURITY

My beloved countrymen, for so many generations now, most Filipinos have been eating rice as a staple food, except for some people in the Visayas who have been used to eating corn. Meanwhile, the price of rice is going up, and there are very few signs that it could go down. As the effects of climate change are worsening, we now see how droughts and floods are affecting agriculture production worldwide. As rice shortages could possibly happen because of climate issues, it could also possibly happen that some rice exporting countries might even stop exporting, to protect their own food security as rice supplies are threatened.

When McDonald’s Hamburgers first opened in the Philippines many years ago, many Filipinos were speculating that they are going to fail, because we would always prefer rice for lunch. The rest is history, because we patronized their hamburgers, but of course without saying goodbye to rice. Since we did not really change our food preferences, McDonald’s even had to start serving rice, something that they are not doing anywhere else. That is not saying that we Filipinos have stopped ordering hamburgers either. It is just all about choices, I guess.

Over the years, we have seen how Filipinos have adjusted their food choices by including non-rice foods in their diets, such as pizzas, spaghettis and even shawarmas. Not only that, it is evident that many Filipinos are just eating bread for breakfast, but sometimes with eggs and meat dishes like tapas and hotdogs. And so, the evidence is very clear that worse comes to worst, most Filipinos could survive even without rice or if not, with lesser intakes of rice.

As I understand it, Israel had officially stopped growing rice many years ago and have chosen to grow oranges instead. From the money that they earn from selling oranges, they buy rice from other countries. From what I heard, Israel had decided that it takes too much water to grow rice, therefore they had to stop growing it, because they need their water for other priorities. Of course, we do not have to do that here, because water supply is not an issue here (at least not yet), and we cannot afford not to produce our own rice because of national security reasons.

Just to be clear, I am not saying that we should stop growing rice. What I am saying instead, is that we should diversify our staple food sources so that we would still have something to eat, even if the droughts and floods would not stop coming, and even if the other countries would stop selling rice to us. Among others, we could diversify our diet by substituting or mixing our rice intake with corn, sorghum, cassava, potatoes, bananas, sweet potatoes, breadfruit and carrots, among others.

Very recently, there is a growing trend of mixing Moringa flour with wheat flour to bake the local favorite pandesal. If Filipinos could get used to that, why not also start mixing banana flour, carrot flour, breadfruit and even cassava flour? This would be a good idea to pursue, because as of now, we are importing about 80% of our flour requirements. That figure is really not good for our food security, considering that climate change could also deplete the flour production from our existing sources. Therefore, the smart thing to do is to start producing our own flour substitutes. Very truly yours, IKE SENERES/11-22-24/visit my blog senseneres.blogspot.com