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Action for Economic Reforms

DO FILIPINOS EAT ‘TOO MUCH’ RICE?

The author is currently a consultant to the Department of Agriculture and the department’s undersecretary for policy and planningfrom 1987 to 1992.


An anecdote often related as gospel truth about the dietary preferences

of Filipinos – especially of the so-called “masses” – is that a common

Filipino meal consists of a “mountain” of rice, flavored by a bit of

soup or viand. This observation then leads to a conclusion that

“Filipinos eat too much rice.” A further conclusion is then hazarded –

that: “If only Filipinos ate less rice, then we won’t have to worry

about imports!”


Yet cross-country evidence shows that on the contrary, Filipinos eat too little rice!

Comparative data on a number of Asian countries show that Filipinos

consume 95 kilos of rice per capita per year. This comes to about 260

grams of milled rice – or about three cups of milled rice per day – or

a cup of milled rice per meal.


In sharp contrast, the Vietnamese consume up to 165 kilos of rice per

capita per year, and the citizens of Myanmar eat as much as 213 kilos

of rice per capita per year!


The statistics on rice consumption is one that many Filipinos find

difficult to accept. It seems that the anecdote on the rice-gorging

Filipino is an enduring story.


Rice is very expensive in the Philippines


Why do the Vietnamese, Thais, Indonesians, Myanmarese, Indonesians,

Cambodians, Bangladeshi and Laotians eat much more rice than Filipinos?

The most important reason why Filipinos eat much less rice than most

other Asians is that rice is so much cheaper in Vietnam, Thailand,

Bangladesh, Laos, Cambodia and Indonesia.


For example, the prices of rice in the Philippines are two to three times than rice prices in Vietnam and Thailand!


When rice is cheap, more of it is consumed.


A distinguishing feature of contemporary Thai and Vietnamese cost of

living is very cheap food – relative to cost of living in the

Philippines. More often than not, Filipino travelers to those countries

return with stories about “How cheap and plentiful is food in Thailand

and Vietnam!”


This has become increasingly evident since the 1980s as Vietnam and

Thailand adopted market-oriented economic policies and invested heavily

in their agriculture and rural sectors.


In countries where rice is cheap, more rice is eaten at the table, and more is also used as animal feed.


Moreover, more rice is processed as a cheap principal raw material and

input into secondary products such as rice cakes, flakes, crispies,

breakfast cereals, noodles, cookies, sweets, desserts, wine and so

forth and so on. Many of these products also have export potential.


Current Philippine policies in the rice sector have intended to keep

rice “affordable” at the retail level, but have only succeeded in

constraining total supply and has kept domestic prices high relative to

those of our neighbors.

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