Three better ways of investing in irrigation

To minimize our rice importation, we must spend our irrigation money wisely. But first, let us understand our rice import situation today.

The reason why the Philippines is the world’s top rice importer was given by Paul John Caña. He quotes from the book “Why Does the Philippine Import Rice,” which states: “Several answers have been given to this question, many of which injure national pride by alluding to bad politicians, corruption, incompetence or laziness. But the real answer is not so bad: In a word, it is geography. ”

We import rice because we are composed of islands with no major deltas like Thailand and Vietnam. The major rice exporters are all in the Southeast Asian mainland (Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar). The importers are all archipelagos or narrow peninsulas  (the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Japan, Korea and Malaysia).

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The book continues: “The fact that countries remain in one club or the other for long periods of time suggests that some deep force is at work. That deep force is endowments of land and water. Thailand has four times the arable land per person versus the Philippines.”

Given this difficult situation, it is necessary that we choose the best ways to use our irrigation money to produce the most rice per peso spent. But in the past, Congress has chosen to spend too much of the available money on new irrigation when other alternatives are more cost-efficient. This is because new irrigation is perceived to get more votes than these other alternatives.

Three alternatives

Last Nov. 19, we talked to National Irrigation Administration (NIA) head Eduardo Guillen and National Confederation of Irrigators Association president Remy Albano. They recommended three more cost-efficient options compared to new irrigation, which averages P1.3 million a hectare.

The first is to spend it on repairs and restoration. This would cost P500,000 per hectare, or 38 percent of the cost of new irrigation. With the same amount of money, we can produce 2.6 times the volume of new irrigation.

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The second alternative is even more attractive. When irrigation does not work because of no energy, solar-powered systems can be used at only P250,000 per hectare. This means more than five times the benefit of new irrigation. Despite this, it is often shelved in favor of new irrigation.

The third is to have solar-powered irrigation in traditionally nonirrigable areas. Irrigation is usually done only on land with a slope grade of 3 percent. But irrigation is not just for rice.

Solar-powered irrigation can be used for high-value crops grown in mountainous areas, with the land sloping at up to 31 percent. This costs P750,000 per hectare. It yields a very high rate of return from these crops that sell for much higher prices than rice.

Other factors

In addition to choosing the optimal mode of irrigation, other factors should be considered to optimize its use. A new rice road map group, with Hazel Tanchuling as chair and Raul Montemayor as cochair, discusses the importance of considering climate change forecasts when deciding when to plant.

Guiller, the NIA administrator, added that planting should no longer be done the traditional way in irrigated areas. Instead, planting should be timed to avoid the dangerous typhoons that cause havoc to rice production. But since this is against farmers’ culture and tradition, a system should be put in place to motivate this new behavior. An example will be to time the provision of inputs such as water, seeds and fertilizers so that the planting is done at the optimal time.

Another key factor is clustering. Irrigation done in clustered areas will result in economies of scale. This will be seen in the different areas of production, credit, marketing and technology transfer. In addition, irrigation  must be part of a holistic agriculture development plan.

Because of geography, we may have no choice but to import rice. However, we should be replacing these imports through wise water use. Choosing the right way of spending irrigation money based on the expected return on investment, instead of perceived political benefit,  must now be done by Congress. This must be supplemented by good management using factors like timing, clustering and the other components necessary for a complete approach. We can then move closer to true food security.