Rice or revolution?
The ultimate Sufficiency Economy
By Jon Fernquest |
Don't forget the Green revolution.
This is the advice I received from an experienced Burmese colleague before I taught a course on economic history.
In the 1960s the Green Revolution created a situation of rice abundance which made rice exports possible and profitable.
Recently palm oil, sugar, corn and other food crops have become profitable fuel crops. If these crops disappear into our cars and consume rice growing land at an ever increasing rate will we need yet another Green Revolution?
Will a Sufficiency Economy be necessary to make sure everyone has sufficient rice to eat before rice is exported for profit? (See recent article)
Today's Bangkok Post business section features an interview with Robert Zeigler, head of the famous International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Phillipines, a key participant in the Green Revolution of the 1960s.
Read more Bangkok Post articles on Agriculture and Oil and Energy.
Here is the article in full:
AGRICULTURE
Expert warns of unrest as rice price soars
CECIL MORELLALOS BANOS, PHILIPPINES : As the price of rice hovers near record levels, many poor countries face the spectre of riots by hungry people, according to one of the world's leading rice experts.
Key producers India and Vietnam have both curtailed exports, sending some of the world's largest rice importers including the Philippines scrambling to procure supplies for their people.
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Spot prices have recently hit more than $700 a tonne, more than three times the price of just five years to go.
Industry officials in Thailand, the world's top exporter, have warned that prices could soon rise to $1,000 a tonne.
Vietnam, the world's third-largest exporter of the grain, also faces the prospect of a return of the deadly crop disease that impacted heavily on its crop yield last year.
These are just some of the problems that keep Robert Zeigler, head of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) up late at night.
Located at Los Banos, a university town south of Manila, IRRI is regarded as the one of the world's premier centres for rice research.
Looking out across paddy fields from his office, Zeigler quoted a Latin American saying: "When the price of rice rises, governments fall."
"If people don't have enough to eat and they don't have enough money to buy enough to eat, that translates frequently into social unrest," he told AFP. "If you look at some of the changes that have taken place in governments in Asia over the last several decades, they have been associated with food shortages."
The Bangladesh cyclone, flooding in Java, a plague of pests and virus in Vietnam, and surging demand from explosive economic growth in China and India, the world's principal rice producers and consumers, have drained global stocks, the US-born expert said.
"I worry about Indonesia because they've been trying to source rice," Zeigler said. "I'm concerned about just about every country in Africa, because they're all major rice importers and rice has become a staple. A few years ago, rice was a luxury for them."
New Delhi raised its export price recently to $750 a tonne while Vietnam has been slow to release licences for export after blocking exports in mid-2007, Zeigler said.
He said there was a real threat of social unrest in Bangladesh as floods have virtually wiped out its entire rice harvest. And he warned: "It's not in India's national security and interest to have instability in Bangladesh."
Zeigler said recent supply shocks were being compounded by longer-term pressures as land is converted for houses and factories, while water is diverted for industrial use - not to mention climate change.
When IRRI was established in 1960 it developed high-yielding, short-stemmed rice varieties which heralded the so-called Green Revolution, boosting global output, cutting food prices and lifting hundreds of millions of rice-eating Asians out of poverty.
"But now there are two billion more people to feed on essentially the same area of farmland," Zeigler said.
Government investments in farm research and infrastructure, including irrigation, have plunged to well under half of pre-Green Revolution levels, he said. "The world took abundant food for granted and ignored this whole set of factors that were coming into play."
Yield growth has also flattened out as populations have soared, and policymakers were blind-sided by the rise of the biofuels industry that took away more farm land, and grains themselves, from the food chain. AFP
(Source: Bangkok Post, business section, page B5, 20-03-08, Cecil Morella, temp-link)
Vocabulary:
The Green Revolution - applied agricultural research in the 1960s that resulted in high yielding varieites of maize, wheat, and rice that allowed food production to keep pace with worldwide population growth (See Wikipedia)
a colleague - someone who works in the same company or department as you
an abundance - when very large quantities exist
Sufficiency Economy - His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej's theory of economic development which includes sustainability, moderation and broad-based development (See Medhi Krongkaew's article in the Kyoto Review, 2003 and Wikipedia on Localism in Thailand)
food crops - plants grown to eat
fuel crops - plants grown as fuel for cars (See Wikipedia on energy crops)
price hovers near Y - price moves up and down around level Y
price of rice hovers near record levels - rice prices are moving up and down at the highest levels ever
a riot - a violent protest by a large crowd of people (See Wikipedia)
the spectre of X - the possibility that unpleasant event X might happen in the future
face problem X - problem X is likely to happen in the future so you have to plan how to deal with it
face the spectre of riots - must start planning to deal with the problem of future riots
curtailed exports - a reduced level of exports
procure - obtain something difficult to obtain
scrambling to do Y - hurry to do Y
scrambling to procure supplies -
a prospect - (See glossary)
faces the prospect of Y - even Y might happen, so plans must be made to deal with it
International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) - rice research institute established in 1960 by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations in cooperation with the Government of Philippine government, developed new breeds of rice and played an important role in starting the Green revolution (See website and Wikipedia)
social unrest - angry or violent behaviour of people protesting against something
stocks - total amounts being stored and available for use (for example, the stock of goods in a store)
drained global stocks - reduced world rice stocks
trying to source rice -
a staple - the most basic and important products, especially foods, for a group of people (for example, food is the staple of the Thai diet)
licenses - official permission to use, do or own something (See glossary)
licenses for export - official permission to export a good
release Y - allow people to have Y, stop holding Y
release licences for export - allow people to have licenses for exporting rice
wiped out - total destruction or failure
floods have virtually wiped out - floods have completely destroyed
supply shocks - sudden changes in the supply of important commities such as oil or rice that can have a negative effect on economies
X compounded by Z - problem X made worse by Z
divert X - make X travel in a different direction, to a different place
water is diverted for industrial use - water is moved from its current use (agricultural?) to an industrial use
climate change - the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-twentieth century, its projected continuation in the future, and the negative consequences of this change such as flooding and droughts (See global warming and Wikipedia)
the yield - the amount produced
high-yielding Y - Y produces a lot
yield growth - growth in amount produced, increases in the amount produced
flattened yields - the amount produced is neither increasing nor decreasing
heralded Y - announce or be a sign that Y is happening
blind-sided - hit the side of a moving car, causing an accident
the food chain - a linear sequence of plants and animals in which each is food for the next member in the sequence, humans are at the top of the world's food chain (See Wikipedia)
