Rice self-sufficiency requires more action

INCREASING the country’s self-sufficiency from the current 87 percent to 93 percent requires more than seed and fertilizer distribution, farmers groups told the Department of Agriculture (DA).

In a statement over the weekend, the National Federation of Peasant Women (Amihan) and the rice watch group Bantay Bigas said that the DA’s Rice Resiliency Project (RRP) is bound to fail as it offers no solution to the decades-long problems of landlessness, high cost of production, limited irrigation services and post-harvest facilities while neoliberal policies remain.