The Rice Eaters: A look at Filipino table manners

A look at why Filipinos eat more and more rice has found interesting morsels to chew on.

Conventional wisdom has it that as income rises, staple food would veer away from rice and corn in favor of bread, pasta, noodles, meat, fish, fruits and vegetables.

This is not happening in the Philippines despite improvement in per capita incomes, albeit at a slow rate.

To find out why, the Philippine Rice Research Institute commissioned the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research (SEARCA), a Los Baños think-tank, to look at the country's rice eating habits.

“The findings have deep policy implications for the country’s rice self-sufficiency goal by 2013, one of the key strategies of which is to reduce rice demand,” says Dr. Gil C. Saguiguit Jr., SEARCA Director.

SEARCA has come up with surprising insights on the continuously increasing demand for rice in the Philippines while its importance is declining in the food baskets of most of its neighbors.

Think about it: 20 centavos of every peso spent for food go to rice.

For most Filipinos, no meal is complete without rice. It remains the basic staple food, the main source of carbohydrates and energy that provides a physiological sensation of satiety.

Each and every day, this seemingly insatiable appetite consumes 33,000 tons; a Filipino eats about 128 kilograms of rice a year; that was in 2008 and the annual per capita consumption has gone down somewhat to 119 kg in 2009-2010.

The average in the 1980s and 1990s was 92 kg per person per year, rising to about 113 kg at the turn of the century and peaking in 2008.

In contrast, the overall importance of rice as a source of calories has been declining in many Asian countries.

For most high- and middle-income nations like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia and Thailand, rice consumption and expenditure are declining, the SEARCA study observes.

Robust economies and the movements toward towns and cities, the continuously changing consumer tastes and preferences for a more diversified and convenient diet, at a time when modern retail markets are booming, all have contributed to the decline.

Not with Filipinos; increasing rice demand has been observed in the last two decades. It's not so much a matter of money; the Philippines is a middle-income country.

While China, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and South Korea have all been showing a decline in the share of rice in food consumption and total calorie intake since 1970 or 1980, the Philippines is going the other way.

A Filipino consumes an average of 111 kg of rice a year; that's P3,336 a year, given its price of P30/kg in 2008-2009. Each year, a household consumes 568 kg of rice, paying P17,123 for it.

Per capita rice consumption in 2008-2009 was actually lower than the national average for 2004-2007 but higher than the rice consumed in the 1990s and early 2000s.

The recent decline was “unusual,” observes Dr. Flordeliza A. Lantican, Dean of the College of Economics and Management, University of the Philippines at Los Baños, who led the SEARCA study.

The decline in per capita rice consumption could have only been caused by the global rice crisis  in the first quarter of 2008, she says.

Looking closely, Lantican found the rich actually consumed less rice than the poor. And the lower to middle income groups paid more for rice than the higher income ones.

“The study clearly indicates that the rise of per capita consumption of rice from 113 kg in 2000 to 128 kg during the rice crisis could not be explained by the theoretical underpinnings of consumer behavior,” Lantican says.

The reason, the study found, is that most rice consumers are poor, particularly those in the barrios where food revolves around rice, the basic table fare.

This is also true for the rich; but unlike the poor, the more affluent have diverse food baskets and consume more luxury commodities such as fish, meat, fruits and vegetables.

Their greater dependence on rice as a source of calories makes the poor more adversely affected by any shortages in the rice supply and more vulnerable to rising prices.

The easy way for the government to decrease rice consumption is to substantially increase the price of rice so that it would become less affordable.

That is wishful thinking, if not outright dangerous, Lantican says, because it will certainly worsen food insecurity, hunger and malnutrition.

Subsidies are not the answer either. It will only induce more rice consumption among the relatively well-off urban consumers, the SEARCA study points out.

The more affluent in urban centers will benefit more from subsidizing rice prices because they have more purchasing power than the poor and the rural consumers in the first place.

Instead, Lantican believes the way to go is for government to improve purchasing power. This way, rice consumption is reduced without hurting consumers, particularly the poor.

“It will lead to a decline in their rice consumption and the diversification of their diet in favor of other foods,” she argues, adding it is the most effective way to manage rice consumption.

Since most of the poor are in the provinces, she says, rural development is very important to improve their income.

This can be done by enhancing the productivity and marketability of farm products, including rice. Once rural income takes off, a nation of rice eaters can afford to reinvent its meals. ScienceNewsPhilippines