| Ag Chief Gets Grief Over Filipino Rice Crisis |
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| Written by Erika Fredrickson | |
| Monday, 24 March 2008 | |
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Agriculture chief, Arthur Yap of the Philippines, came under some fire last week when he suggested that fast food restaurants offer half-portions of rice. "I never told Filipinos to eat less," he was quoted as saying in a Southern Luzon article. Yap says that with high rice prices and 25,000 bags of rice wasted each day, the National Food Authority suggested smaller helpings of rice be available for conservation measures. This miscommunication illuminates the enormous strain that the Philippines is under. Demand for rice has forced prices sky-high, but there's no sign of increasing supplies. Developers are consuming farm land, and farmers are going for more profitable crops like biofuels. Some farmers are seeing climate patterns severely affecting their yields. Many farmers – especially those who don't own their land – are giving up, looking for other opportunities. Pressure on Filipino farmers isn't just regional. Rice supply worldwide has been plummeting including a loss of over seven million acres of rice land in China over the past decade. Source: AFP |
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It's true what our moms said...we are what we eat. In fact, it's truer than they thought. What I eat doesn't just affect me anymore, it affects all of us.
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