What we should be doing with rice

An Australian living in the Philippines had a story, which I first thought of as strange, of how rice is grown in his native land. They don’t have paddies, just wide expanses of fields where huge machines directly drill rice seeds into the soil, quite unlike the system that most Filipinos have known in their lifetime.

In other areas, soaked rice seeds are planted by planes from the air, the grains sinking into mechanically dug shallow furrows that have been kept moist under controlled water levels. When harvest time comes, it’s another big show of mechanization from collection of the golden grains, to threshing, milling, and packaging.

It turns out, Australia has indeed made great advances in how their farmers plant and harvest rice, as with other grains like wheat, barley, and canola to become a leading exporter while ensuring that their own domestic food needs are kept secure.

Their government, through its Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, has put in considerable effort, through policy adaptations, geared towards improving farming. Since the 2000s, Australia noted improved harvests over the years, especially in what it calls as broadacre cropping farms.

Aside from its government programs, Australia has a strong private sector of farmer groups and farm companies that have relentlessly driven innovation in developing agricultural technologies, like improving seed varieties, planting techniques, less water usage, and the all-important mechanization of harvesting, threshing, and milling.

Australia’s push

Australia is home to the SunRice Group, reputably its largest rice food supplier and exporter. The company does not rank among the world’s biggest, but its operations in the last decade has yielded impressive earnings, mainly through exports of high-value specialty rice to targeted markets like Japan.

The exemplary performance of SunRice is one of the reasons for Vietnam, the world’s third largest rice producer, to forge a private-public partnership meant to bring scientific and economic benefits across its whole rice supply chain, from rice breeding to production to marketing.

Forged late last year, the partnership brings to the table joint researches by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), SunRice Group, University of Queensland, An Giang University, Can Tho University, and Cuu Long Rice Research Institute.

Vietnam, from the looks of it, is seriously looking ahead to fortifying its rice production capabilities. The four-year partnership project will bring innovation for Vietnam’s small rice farmers who expect to be connected to high-value markets.

It will also enable Vietnam to embrace sustainable rice farming methods, which have been regarded as important to the overall risks faced by its rice farmers who rely on changing ecological conditions of the Mekong Delta region in its southern coastline.

Australia similarly faced environmental threats to its rice farmlands in recent years, with extreme weather conditions of flooding and long drawn-out droughts.

One of the key features in their ability to adapt had been advance warnings of adverse weather disturbances, well-laid out plans to meet these challenges, and continued innovation in farm inputs, like seeds.

Vietnam’s response

This partnership is making me green with envy because it is something that Filipino rice farmers could have benefited from. Of course, a number of solid reasons tell me that I could turn blue and Australia or SunRice would not even be bothered.

First, SunRice is a major investor in Vietnam, having bought a rice-processing facility in Lap Vo located in the Mekong Delta. This hub is essential to SunRice’s global supply system, from where it is able to ship its products to over 50 other countries.

ACIAR, Australia’s specialist agricultural research-for-development agency, has also been working closely with Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development since 2018 to bridge Australia’s rice-growing knowledge with Vietnam’s industry.

Both are bringing in $5 million to the project, with $2.4 million from SunRice, and the remaining $2.6 million from ACIAR. One pressing reason too for Australia’s support is in the degree of climate vulnerability that the Mekong Delta is facing, and in consequence, on the export income of Vietnam from rice.

For some time now, the Cu Long Rice Research Institute has been working to develop a short-grain Japonica rice that would produce higher yields, but at the same time, tolerate the abiotic and biotic stress conditions of the lower Mekong. This premium rice is one of the varieties that SunRice sells to its customers.

Rethinking old ways

As we are too painfully aware, the Philippines is not even a mile away from exporting its rice. Even decades of expressing an ambition to simply be self-reliant has not brought us anywhere near that level, and while our rice production has somewhat increased over the years, demand has continued to outpace local supply, thus necessitating continued importation.

The second, and by far, more important reason is the inherent flaw that the Philippines maintains for its rice farming. With limiting laws to expand rice farm sizes, our farmers are kept in bondage to a lifetime of meager earnings.

Successful commercial rice growers only know too well that the size of the land matters, where huge tracts far bigger than our seven-hectare maximum rice land sizes are needed to bring in the needed income to invest in all the necessary research and machineries to improve land productivity.

Apologies to Schumacher’s “Small is Beautiful,” which was in rage in the 1970s, but today’s global food needs, changing climates, pestilence, and still growing population is forcing the whole world to rethink old ways to survive. We should too.

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