Rice has become the most important crop worldwide affecting one’s food security, livelihood, and country’s economy. In Asia, for instance, above two billion Asians are depending on rice and rice products as their main source of energy. Rice production is the world’s primary source of livelihood. Households from Africa, Asia, and America engage in rice production as their employment and source of income.
Like in any countries in the world, rice production also plays important roles in the Philippines. Rice accounts for at least 20 to 30 percent calorie intake of Filipinos; 32% of the country’s population are employed in rice production (FAO, 2013). It contributes 13 percent to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), 16 percent are given to the Gross Value Added (GVA) of agricultural sector, and 3.5 percent is contributed to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country (Gonzales, 1999). Thus, rice is not a food staple alone but also an economic commodity.
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Worldwide, 70% of water is used especially in rice cultivation (Van der Hoek et al., 2001 as cited in Rejesus et al., 2010). About 17 percent of the cropland in the world is irrigated wherein, 60 percent of it is located in Asia (Guerra, 1998 as cited in Zhang et al., 2012). Indeed, without water there is no rice. However, recently, water has been increasingly scarce. In fact, it is estimated by Bouman and Tuong (2003) that by 2025, water scarcity will be experienced by almost 2 million ha of irrigated dry-season rice and 13 million ha of irrigated wet-season rice in Asia. Today, it is no doubt that the Philippines is experiencing a serious problem on El Nino, a condition wherein the country is having an abnormal or very long dry season leading to serious drought problems. As an effect of El Nino, water becomes a limiting factor in rice
In the first chapter of the book the author discusses a brief world history and evolution of rice crops. It is interesting to see that even though parts of Africa had their own rice crop variety, the globalization of rice crop Oryza Sativa has been slowly replacing the African variety. The author also starts
The cultivation of rice has had an enormous impact on the natural biome. Rice has affected the natural biome that it is grown in, in a devastating way. It has caused the natural biomes to deteriorate and caused the natural way of life to collapse leaving no place for the native animals and plants. But what would happen if the cultivation of rice stopped and the natural biomes returned to their former glory? What would happen to all those people depending on rice for the next meal? Those who depend on rice to pay for and keep their families alive? This report looks at the where, effects, who and how of rice cultivation.
Until now, genetically engineered crops were created to resist insect pests or to control the growth of weeds by using herbicides. However, in this circumstance the genetically engineered rice not only benefits the farmers who grow it, but primarily the consumers who eat it. These consumers include at least a million children who die every year because they are weakened by vitamin-A deficiency and an additional 350,000 people who go blind. In addition to this concern, there is another. It is prospected that by the year 2020, the demand for grain, both for human consumption and for animal feed, is projected to go up by nearly half, while the amount of farmable land will probably dwindle, thus introducing a whole new series of problems.
Globalization of goods /services and fair trade has helped in providing developing countries with more output of products, selling and producing techniques that are more ethical, open future investments through funding and technology. While some have benefited, others have lost jobs and resources. Coffee the second valuable traded commodity in the markets, has needed help in this industry with fair trade. These farmers crops usually grown in remote areas, have no access to credit , are indigent and in need of funding and technology. “A labor-intensive crop, coffee grows well on small and steeply slope parcels of land. Small scale producers often with landholding smaller than 3 hectares, constitute the majority of coffee producers in the country and are concentrated in some of the poorest regions.” Case Studies...(2009). The reasons these farmers do not profit well in the markets today, because they have lost their place as the foreign exchange earner allowing other competitors like Vietnam, Cost Rico, Ethiopia, India ,Tanzania and Uganda to emerge. “When the collapse of the ...
The developed world’s love affair with local/organic farming (peasant farming as Collier describes it) has decreased food production worldwide because it does not use the land efficiently enough as with commercial agriculture companies. It also requires government subsidies that large commercial farming companies do not necessarily need. By increasing commercial farming, the world food supply will inevitably increase over a short period.
The movement particularly emphasizes on exports from developing countries to developed countries, with products such as handicrafts, coffee, cocoa, sugar, tea, bananas, honey, cotton, wine, fresh fruit, chocolate, flowers and gold. Moreover, coffee is one of the most widely traded goods in the world. For many developing countries, coffee trade is an important source of income. Producers can provide a better trading and improve terms of trade. Moreover, this allows producers to improve workers’ living environment and future life in general (De Pelsmacker, Driessen and Rayp, 2005).
Our first solution is New Delhi, India. India's wheat and rice production can be increased by over 60 percent, sugarcane production by 41 per cent and cotton production by 73 per cent. The best part of this solution is that we don’t have to cut down trees or forests or we don’t even have to increase farm area! Basically, in over 157 countries, including India farms are not producing their capacities. Most importantly, in India, a study found that in wheat, the current yield was 2.49 tonnes per hectare (tph) while it could go up to 3.98 tph if proper fertilizer and water is provided. Similarly, rice yield could increase from 2.88 tph to 4...
Agriculture is considered to be one of the most vulnerable sectors to climate change. Although at present, the overall impact of climate change on global scale agricultural productivity is not reliably estimated (Gornall et al., 2010). Many studies show serious implications on agricultural productivity for instance IFPRI(2009) projects that in South Asia by 2050 climate change will reduce production of rice, wheat and maize by 14%, 44% to 49% and 9%-19% respectively relative to no climate change situation. Historical temperature yield relationship indicates that at the global scale warming from 1981-2002 very likely offset some of the yield gains from technology advances, rising CO2 and other non climatic factors (Lobell and Field, 2007).
The tropics are effect by many weather conditions which makes the jobs of farmers difficult. Overall subsistence and the GNP are effected by changes in weather, which for the most part is not always predictable. In a world that is divided up into the haves and the have nots, government influence is crucial in regulating practices and the overall distribution of wealth Despite this fact, programs implemented did not always succeed in benefitting the Filipinos. One major attribute of the Philippines is the wide variety of crops produced in this region. Crops which many not be able to grow during the rainy season may grow during in the period of December - May when there is little rainfall (and vice versa).
There are 27.4 million people that live in these targeted regions and of that 40.5% of them live in poverty and 37.1% of the children of five were suffering from stunting (Feed the Future). In the areas of Bangladesh that Feed the Future has been targeting, they have been fairly effective. Between 2011 and 2014, there has been a 14.4% reduction in childhood stunting. There has also been roughly a 16% decrease in poverty in areas Feed the Future has been working. This was done by helping smallholder farmers learn how to use new technologies and management practices. They are getting close to hitting their goal in 2017 of 32.4% poverty and 30.5% stunting in children under 5 years. The efforts they have put into help farmers and producers to improve the agricultural products resulted in an increase value of sales of $129.57 million (Feed the Future). Bangladesh has also increased the amount of rice they have been exporting because with all the agricultural innovations their rice production
Lao society is rural and subsistence agriculture accounts for half of the GDP and provides 80% of employment. Rice is the primary crop, grown on about 80% of Laos’ arable land. Laos received development aid from the International Monetary Fund, Asia Development Bank and other international sources. Agricultural production and most manufacturing production are mostly conducted by the private se...
Rice was introduced into Japan between the Final Jomon and the Early Yayoi Period, some scholars suggest that it could have been as early as six-thousand years ago. There are various Japanese characters from each time period that represent the growing of rice. In order to grow rice in Japan, the steep land has to be terraced. This creates small areas high on mountainsides where various things are grown. In 2012, 1.55 million hectares were used to grow rice in Japan. However, this number is significantly smaller than it has been in previous years. In 2008, 4.68 million hectares of rice were being harvested. The average field for one farmer is very small and the production of the rice is highly mechanized. The steep decline in hectares of rice grown is because the number of Japanese farm households has declined dramatically in recent years. Some farmers in Japan even consider rice farming to be a part time job and not as important as other commodities. The decline is also from a change in the Staple Food Control Act in 1969. The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries asked farmers to reduce their rice acreage because of the overproduction of rice. This was put into place to lower the rice amount and spend more focus on other agricultural products in order to compensate in other areas.
Sandra Postel, on the other hand, has a different opinion than Danielle’s. She proposed that “without increasing water productivity in irrigation, major food-producing regions will not have enough water to sustain crop production”.
Even though that Filipinos would greatly prefer rice-meals as a primary staple it is never too late to introduce a new product to the market. The food industry is primarily fueled by tastes and fads. The culture of the Filipino is when they like the food that they eat, regardless of the price they will keep on buying the product. Until their marginal utility for the products completely depleted, this is why the food industry is really fueled by tastes and buying behaviors.
Global warming is one of the main causes, which leads to the lack of water and drought. A drought-like condition exists in most of India’s part. Government of India states that 68% of the country is disposed to the drought, which (consequences are) leads to massive migration of people to more favorable places, famine, conflicts among inhabitants. India is known in the world as one of the biggest producers of water-intensive crops such as rice, sugarcane and wheat. According to a survey done by Grail Research, approximately 82% of total water is used for agricultural consumption and 90% of it is employed for irrigation of rice, wheat and sugarcane (Grail Research, LLC, 2009). There are several solutions which could lead to the decr...