Farmers demand scrapping of rice research institute

Cynthia D. Balana and Christine Gaylican Inquirer News Service 4apr01

DESPITE the success of the Green Revolution and improved genetic rice engineering, a lot of people in Asia, including those in the Philippines, are still starving and their number has increased by 11 percent over the last 30 years, according to non governmental groups.

The Magsasaka at Siyentipiko para sa Pag-unlad ng Agrikultura (Masipag) said the International Rice Research Institute has not been successful in achieving food sufficiency in Asia despite pushing research for rice genetic engineering to the detriment of small farmers.

Because of this, the farmers’ groups have asked President Macapagal-Arroyo to abolish the Irri because it has not contributed to the country’s rice sufficiency.

In fact, the country will import some 350,000 metric tons of milled rice this year from Thailand and Vietnam because local production could not meet local demand.

"The grim scenario of a future succumbing to malnutrition, famine and deaths due to over-exploding global population without enough food to eat, caught them up in an illusion that Irri’s technology is indeed the most sensible path to take," said Abigail Verdillo, advocacy officer of Masipag.

'Gene revolution’

Today’s "gene revolution" has its root from Irri’s industrial farming model of the Green Revolution--both aimed at bringing food security to the world.

But Masipag said that the history of Green Revolution would show that poverty and hunger still persist in Asia despite the leaps and bounds in grain production and yields in many developing countries.

According to Elenita Dano, executive director of the South East Asia Regional Institute for Community Education (SEARICE), the number of starving people in Asia is still increasing each year based on the latest statistics released by the Food and Agriculture Organization.

"These bitter lessons glaringly tell us that increases in food production will not solve hunger," Dano said.

She added that technological innovations in agriculture is the wrong solution to the problem of hunger which is accurately rooted in unequal distribution of wealth and inequitable access to resources.

"After 41 years, Irri has nowhere near achieved food sufficiency in Asia," said Rafael Mariano, chairperson of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas.

"Instead, it has restructured sound traditional agricultural practices to become dependent and subjugated to chemical inputs which are products of TNC-controlled agri-business," he added.

Mariano stressed that Irri’s chemical dependent seeds and intensive capital input high yielding varieties (HYVs) had eroded the traditional rice varieties (TRVs) of Filipino rice farmers and had a negative impact on the ecological system of agricultural lands.

Vitamin A rice

"Irri has produced the high-yielding variety of rice and now the Vitamin A rice, which are very dependent on fertilizers," said Masipag’s farmer-member Leopoldo Guilaran in a press conference. "This had a grave impact on the country’s agricultural lands."

Guilaran said that there are safe and alternative methods of farming, which are less harmful to farmers and consumers alike. "However, Irri has insisted on their agricultural method and still refuses to acknowledge them beyond mere lip service."

"Transgenic rice does not answer the more pressing needs of farmers nor is it able to enhance our strengths and resources," said Guilaran, a farmer-member from Negros Occidental.

The farmers groups also urged the President to look carefully into the mandate of the Irri, considered as Asia’s agriculture research center located in Los Banos, Laguna, especially its "immunity" from being accountable to any serious accidents or complaints from workers.

Mariano said Irri has not accounted for the deaths of at least 215 former workers and other members of its community since 1975. According to Masipag, the least that Ms Macapagal could do is to veto Presidential Decree No. 1620, which gives Irri a "diplomatic status" and therefore its activities may it be in research or labor practices could not be made to undergo litigation.

"Because of PD 1620 issued by former President Ferdinand Marcos, no courts shall heed the complaints on Irri’s activities," Masipag’s advocacy officer Abigail Verdillo said in the same press conference.

KMP and Masipag also criticized Irri’s involvement in research for rice genetic engineering to the detriment of both farmers and consumers and despite the presence of safe and sustainable alternatives.

Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) Peasant Movement of the Philippines URL: http://www.geocities.com/kmp_ph