The Native Rice Dilemma, Part 2

Mature Tinawon, ready to harvest

Photo from Eighth Wonder

In 1978, Mary Hensley spent two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kalinga, a rice terrace community north of Ifugao. Inspired by the native rice farmers there, she and her Filipina friend Vicky created Eighth Wonder, a socially responsible, shared-equity business (http://www.heirloomrice.com/) that operates under the free-trade mentality of “Trade not Aid”. Basically, she saw the same thing I did when I researched the rice—the only real way to keep the terraces physically intact would be to make it profitable somehow. The only way to make it profitable would be to sell the organic rice in an international market that can afford to pay a high price for it.

When I first thought about it a few years ago, I thought it would be simple to convince farmers to sell their rice for a profit. But it turns out that it’s not.

Adam, a Peace Corps volunteer and my neighbor, works with Mary and Vicky on their project. He helps with tinawon quality control, and also works with Vicky to talk to farmers about selling their rice for a profit. To determine if growing tinawon as a cash crop would bring a profit to the farmers, Adam and his coworkers at the Department of Agriculture (D.A.) worked out how much it costs a farmer to grow the rice here.

They figured out that if a farmer chooses to farm the tinawon, the native organic rice, he’ll spend around 3500P on the farm labor, which includes the work done by laborers all year, the pounding (tinawon must be pounded by hand to maintain the integrity of the grain), and the lunch expenses for the workers. If a farmer yields around 100 kilos of rice, he’ll get paid about 50P (1USD) per kilo—totaling 5000P (100USD). Subtract the labor costs from the check he gets for the rice, and he ends up with around 1,500P. Now that the farmer sold all of his rice, he’ll have to by the commercial variety to eat for the rest of his year. For an average family, that might cost around 8000P. So, the farmer suffers a 6,500P loss when farming tinawon for export. One obvious point: it’s almost impossible to be a farmer without some other kind of livelihood.

Farmers planting

Photo by Eighth Wonder

Now if the farmer chooses to farm lucuop, a high yielding, low maintenance variety, the story is a bit different. Lucuop cannot be grown for export (since it’s not the native, organic variety). So, all the lucuop will be consumed as food. Unfortunately, if the farmer grows around 120 bundles, or approx. 260 kilos (since it can be harvested twice a year), he will still only have rice for about three months. So, he’ll have to spend about 6000P for the rest of the year. That, plus the labor and milling costs (around 2500P) put him 8,500P in the hole. That’s 1,500P more in debt than if he were to export.

So, on paper, farming the tinawon seems to benefit the farmers, right? They’ll reduce their losses by 1,500P—around 30USD. That said, Adam has experienced a lot of resistance getting the farmers to sign on. The people that work in the D.A. office all told Adam that they would rather suffer an additional 1,500P loss than have to buy commercial rice year round. They listed several reasons: 1. The lucuop and tinawon rice varieties are grown on their Banaue rice terraces, which, even if it isn’t the traditional rice, is a source of pride. Having to eat lowland commercial rice is a shame they want to avoid. There’s a bit of inherent xenophobia in the Ifugao that affects their emotional response in this situation. 2. The tinawon is much healthier, and they’d rather take an economic hit and enjoy their organic rice for a few months than export it out of the country to foreigners.

Women separating the seedlings from mud to be planted in the fields the next day
Adam and I speculated a bit about this resistance. The Ifugao are quite proud of the fact that they held off foreign influence and colonization for so long. They maintained their cultural integrity for many years, and in many ways are uncomfortable with the toll that modernity and tourism have taken on their culture. The thought of selling their beloved rice to foreigners is like selling out to them.

But this was the also the response of the people in the Department of Agriculture: educated, relatively well off land owners who have the luxury of letting their pride and emotions create budgetary losses. Most of them rarely, if ever, work in the fields. But what about the poor farmers who would do anything to save some pesos, who would desperately like to take a step up on the economic ladder? It seems this might be just the opportunity for them.

Woman pounding the rice

Photo by Eighth Wonder

There’s been a lot of commentary in the community. Many say the project won’t work because they won’t be able to get enough supply for the demand in the U.S. That’s possible, but not definite. It is hard to get enough supply here, but that might change. Another complaint is that 50P/kilo is not enough money for all the work that goes into it, and some farmers don’t think it’s worth it. Again, it may not be for farmers who can afford to lose the money, but to those who can’t and who wouldn’t make any money otherwise, it might be. Another disturbing factor is that some farmers have also spread rumors around that they were promised 250P/ kilo (about 5 dollars per kilo, which is absurd) and that Mary went back on her promises. This is absolutely not true, but it’s hard to stop those rumors when people here operate so much by word of mouth.

But there have been other responses too. Vicky, one of the founders of Eighth Wonder, quoted the closing comments from a city council representative at the end of one of their information meetings: “This project is challenging our capability as a people—not just because we have the variety that would sell in America—but because they are inspiring us to build that bridge to let our brothers on a distant shore remember us by providing them with our rice, and through that, our culture, that they too may cherish… This is our chance to stand up and together produce a quality rice that will bring us into the international market, but also, bring our people back to their ancestral land.”

Man carrying the rice to the granary

Photo by Eighth Wonder

And another excerpt from Vicky’s journal that inspired me: “This is what I have been praying for. I would be happy to die knowing that my land and my people will go back to tilling our ancestral land and have something to look forward to. …You (Vicky) are an angel for sharing with us this project, a project that will give us a better future to work for.”

In some ways, I think this project has huge potential to link the U.S. and the Philippines in a way that educates Americans about the terraces, empowers Filipino farmers, and maintains their dignity. Presented correctly, this could be an opportunity to share the pride of their land, not compromise it. But, it remains to be seen if the farmers will actually choose to do it. I’ll be joining their team for nine days in March to tour the province, shadow their meetings, and talk to farmers. I’m interested to see if this idea—which sounds so wonderful—can really work.

Bags of rice to sell

Photo by Eighth Wonder