C-rice-is

Maybe I’m over-simplifying this, but here’s how I understand Malthus: he predicted that man’s ability to produce food would be outstripped by the speed of population growth, eventually resulting in everyone being reduced to a subsistence existence.

In August last year, the New York times loudly trumpeted the debunking of Malthus by saying that the Industrial Revolution had boosted humanity’s ability to produce food (by industrializing agriculture), allowing it to keep pace with the growth of population. Locally, Solita Monsod (in an article I can no longer find) agreed and dismissed Malthus by adopting pretty much the same line of reasoning.

Another favorite of Malthus’ critics is the idea that, even in the absence of technological advancement or increased capital expenditure, the very growth of labor would overcome the imbalance. Basically, the thinking goes that food production increases (enough to meet relentlessly growing demand) because there are more people to make food.

And so, most everyone comfortably thinks that Malthus got it wrong. Recent events seem to me to prove otherwise. Either that, or we’re such a fucked-up country that even with what we needed to escape the Malthusian trap, we still ended up neck-deep in it.

First of all, we were in fact benefited by the fruits of the industrial revolution. Back in the day – circa 60s and 70s – everyone hailed Philippine agriculture as one of the most advanced in South East Asia, maybe even the world. But, having reached that peak, we’ve gone pretty much downhill since then. Where once our farmers had tractors and such, now too many of our farmers have gone back to using wooden plows. Wooden plows, man! That’s screwed up.

I blame government for not having a rational agriculture policy. I blame government for letting corruption take its toll on this, one of the most vital parts of a country’s life. But mostly, I blame government for perpetuating the insanity that is comprehensive agrarian reform.

Second, we have labor in spades. But with our bullheaded adherence to the concept of agrarian reform, we’ve gamed our system so that we can’t even maximize use of that labor force. I mean, think of it:

With land in the hands of big farmers, there is enough capital for modernization. Modernization means increasing agricultural efficiency and productivity. With productive farms, labor becomes a much needed resource and farms become major employers. Thus, with both modernized agriculture and the labor force to work the tractors and things, food production would have been boosted in a major way.

But with land reform, we carved up otherwise productive lands, took them away from the people with the capital to maximize the potential of the land, and gave them to individuals who did not have the technology or the capital to make their lands as productive as it used to be. Today, many of those who didn’t sell their lands the minute they got their titles, engage only in subsistence agriculture, making enough food only to feed their families.

And so we end up smack dab in the middle of a Malthusian crisis. While it is true that we had in our grasp everything we needed to escape that trap, we foolishly let it all slip away.So where does that leave that country?

In a rice crisis.

Filed under: musings, society, comprehensive agrarian reform, malthus, rice crisis

Malthus got this one right

Heaven after Hell. That sums it up neatly for me, I think, the effect of the Roman Catholic church on Philippine society, and what it promises – especially in the context of the current rice situation.

Time to face facts: there’s too many people and too little rice. It’s not even about the cost of rice anymore (which makes that populist grandstanding about a moratorium of VAT even more stupid), but the very availability of the damned grain. From the third rice tender this year, we expected to get 500,000 metric tones of rice from international bidders, but only 325,750 metric tons was actually on offer. So how do we make up the shortfall? Even with that ludicrous rice subsidy they have going on, the supply simply isn’t there.

Worse, whatever rice is available is being snapped up at a much faster rate than normal. The idea of a looming crisis has activated the panic-buying switch in everyone. Now, it’s not just the big traders hoarding rice, it’s the small consumers. Or should I say the pseudo-small consumers?

You see, some well-off families have been gaming the system. When you reach a certain income bracket, people eat more often at restaurants than at home. For these people, the rice they buy is mostly for the house-help and the pets. Ironically, in the circles I know, these are also the largest purchasers of cheap rice. With most of these upper-income families employing at least two – up to six – house-help, they are able to buy more at those street side selling points.

First thing they do is they go quite a distance from where they actually live. When they find a selling point, the helpers line up with everyone else, only they are spaced about two-three people apart. Most of the time, they’re not noticed as strangers. But when they are, they just say they’re from so-and-so depressed community and that that place ran out of rice. They then give the sob story about having had to walk or travel far just to find rice. It’s clever, really. This story reinforces the notion that there is a shortage, and sets people a-twitter. In short order, they forget that their are strangers among them.

Once they get their quota of cheap rice, these helpers walk walk walk. Eventually, they all meet up, get in the re-conditioned van they use for going to the market and drive on home.

Last night, a friend of mine told me this story, practically beaming with pride at how canny her septuagenarian father is. Some part of me wanted to share her pride at this cultural stereotype being proven right, but a bigger part of me wanted to smack her upside the head. We’re not foreigners anymore, bitch.

But she did make one other point tho’. Part of the problem is that there are just too many people competing for a small and finite supply of rice. And for this, I blame Holy Mother Church.

Solita Monsod recently said the Church makes no difference; that people make family size decisions regardless of what the church says. I say that’s not quite accurate. While it is true that people don’t really take the Church all that seriously, the fact is the government does. And because the government is slavish to the Church it has, against all good sense, refused to make information about contraception and planned parenthood unavailable (thanks for the edit, Jeg) to the masses. Worse, condoms and IUDs are no longer given out at health centers. So, even if people actually wanted to limit the size of their families, they simply don’t know how to do it. And even if they did, they can’t get their hands on the birth control methods they need. It is this pernicious, albeit indirect, influence of the Church on the size of Filipino families that all but guarantees life on this earth can get pretty hellish.

At least in this beautiful country, it appears that Malthus was right on the money.

Filed under: church and state, education, musings, politics, society, malthus, population control, rice crisis