The Paddy Tao and his rice crop
Media
Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal
- Title
- The Paddy Tao and his rice crop
- Language
- English
- Source
- The American Chamber of Commerce Journal Volume 7 (Issue No. 8) August 1927
- Year
- 1927
- Rights
-
- Fulltext
- 6 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL August, 1927 gather as accurately as I could the view of the leading newspapers of the United States with reference to our future policy concerning the Philippines; and regardless of party or party affiliations upon the part of the press, it was almost wholly in favor of keeping the Phil ippine Islands permanently. What I rise to do now is to impress upon the Filipino people the lesson which I gathered, and that they should adjust themselves to the fact that they are a part of the United States and are to remain so permanently. * * * I only wanted to sug gest to these people in the Philippines that they take off their bonnets and take out their knitting and sit down and be content. They are not on a visit. They are here to stay. I wanted to suggest to them contentment and ease; I wanted to ask them to address themselves henceforth, not to the subject of independence, but to the matter of fitting themselves to become an in tegral part of a great republic.” Now Borah, whether men always like him or not, is an authority on the Constitution; and whether he found Congress estopped specific ally by that instrument or not, he did find it estopped by the very spirit of the document and the principle by which it was conceived. He found Congress estopped by overwhelming public opinion, and every man who follows The “Paddy Tao” and His Rice Crop In spite of increased importations of flour, rice will always be the principal food of Filipinos, as it is of all orientals. In the Philippines, about 5-1/2 million people are directly depend ent upon rice production for their living; the average area cultivated per capita is a third of a hectare, about 0.83 acres. Rice matures late in the calendar year and harvesting laps over into the succeeding year. The 1926-1927 crop was exceptionally good, the largest ever produced in the islands, estimates being 54,500,000 cavans of 96 pounds, or 1,700,000 tons of clean rice from 1,800,000 hectares, or 4,446,000 acres. The value of the crop is placed at Pl88,000,000, the highest of any Philippine farm crop. However, the cash yield per capita is still very low, about P34 or $17. We have figures on the average yield per hectare from 1920 to 1925, which was 24.51 cavans; though in the central plain of Luzon the yield is much higher and approaches that of Indoasia. The yield in Nueva Ecija rarely falls below an average of 40 cavans per hectare. Conversion of these figures into bushels and acres will give the reader in the United States an accurate idea of rice production in the Philippines. Merchandizing rice in the Philippines is prac tically controlled by Chinese. They control importing, storing and milling, and retailing too to a great extent—as they do widely through out the orient, being able to organize effectively in order to do so. Their average gains in the rice trade vary from 12 to 14 per cent, which is not an exorbitant profit, 12 per cent being the legal rate of interest. In the great rice valley of Luzon, good rice lands sell around 1’600 to 1’800 the hectare, but Pl,000 has been asked and paid this year. (The peso is fifty.cents, four bits, half a dollar.) Being a domesticated water-grass, rice does best in fields where water is abundant either from the rains or from artificial irrigation. It is a crop that lends itself to intensive cultivation. Density of oriental populations is in direct ratio to the rice supply. Japan reports this year yields averaging 52 cavans per hectare. Philippine yields are still too low; excepting irrigation pro jects the cost of which is repayable over a long period by annual installments covering principal, interest and maintenance, the industry has received little aid from the government to whose support it so largely contributes. The agencies that ought to help are not unwilling, they are unable to grasp the problems of .the producer; hence he works out his salvation quite generally independent of them. The report of Colonel Carmi Aiderman Thompson to President Coolidge last year, recommended establishment of United him will have the same experience. The thing cannot be done in a corner, and therefore it cannot be done at all; for as soon as men step out into the open to do it, as they must, the instantly aroused public opinion of the nation will intervene to prevent them. Above the law, whatever men may argue that it is, is the will of the sovereign people of the United States. In this seventh anniversary number of the Journal it is therefore desired to say that the duty confronting all public men in the Phil ippines and all members of Congress, together with the President, is that of ascertaining the best way of fitting the islands into their niche as “an integral part of the United States.” For that is what they are by decree of public opinion, the highest force in the land. If it was sufficient in 1914 to abash the Senate, and it was, it is no less able now to enforce its unquestioned will. There is in this whole question both the law and the facts. The lawyers may bandy back and forth their various interpretations of the law, but the facts are beyond them. The facts are in the hands of a jury of nearly 120 million people, and this jury has already cast its ballots. The question is settled, and what is seen now, as in the symposium of congressional opinion in the Review of Reviews, is the political parties adjusting their respective positions to the people’s decision—already made and recorded. Carrying Rice States agricultural stations in the Philippines. The situation respecting the rice industry here may have been one of the reasons. Importing rice to supplement the limited domestic supply has been the rule for the past quarter of a century, and has the effect of stab ilizing the price to a great extent. A protective tariff of 1’3 per 100 kilos of clean rice provides revenue for the government; and under other circumstances the industry would not be profit able. The Indoasian rice, produced by the coolie system under optimum climatic and soil con ditions, would come into free competition with rice grown by Filipinos with their higher stand ard of living, which they naturally desire to maintain and elevate. In the rice industry, credits are granted on a limited scale by the Chinese who control the commercial end of it. Freight rates into Manila are still’high; the spread of prices interprovincially is a problem still requiring solution. Generally speaking, earnings on invested capital do not exceed the legal rate of interest on money. Rice is grown by the millions for their daily necessities. Climatic limitations and the law of diminishing returns and the re current low-price periods tend to reduce the level of profits. More than 40 provinces in the islands, out of a total of 49, produce rice; but four of them grow nearly half of the annual crop. Sprouted in seedbeds and transplanted by hand, as rice is, the industry flourishes best in regions of congested population. The land lord usually pays the cost of transplanting and the tenant that of harvesting, the cost of plant ing ranging from 1 * 9 to 1 * 14 the hectare. With the exception of the separator, the small ricehuller and the motor truck, there has been no modern machinery introduced profitably to take the place of hand labor. Separator owners charge from 7% to 8% of the crop for thrashing it out. Trucking charges average 7/8 centavo per 100 pounds per kilometer. Independable rainfall calls for irrigation, which is merely a farm of crop insurance against the greatest enemy of rice—drought. Less ,than 1/8 of Philippine rice lands are provided with permanent irrigation systems, hence the low average yields. Growing rice is commonly believed to be a primitive type of farming. As a matter of fact, it is quite complicated. Over wide areas in the Philippines the double-crop system is unprofit able on account of the climate; on account of this factor, projects to produce rice on a large scale by growing two crops a year on the same land will fail. The main agricultural motive power in the Philippines is, and will be, the carabao—suited to work in partly submerged fields and adapt able to the intensive methods of cultivation followed in the orient. The milling value of rice varies greatly. In Burma, the leading rice exporting country, a run of 70% of the rough rice, palay, is milled into clean rice; in Indochina and Siam, from 68% to 69%. In the Philippines, only from 63% to 65%. This is due to adoption of selected varie ties in Burma and Indochina and Siam. With some 1,200 different varieties of rice in the Phil ippines, a high milling-loss results, calculated to be 1’4,000,000 the year. This has a material influence upon net yields. But our domestic rice is the most wholesome. The imported rices are subjected to high milling, which removes the gluten and cuticle containing the most nutritious parts of the grain. Relied upon as a regular diet, such rice tends to provoke beriberi; it is wanting in essential vitamins. In 100 pounds of highly milled rice, there is 0.4 pounds of fats. In 100 pounds of rice polish, there is 7.2 pounds of fats. Much of the flavor is in the fats, the imported polished rices are obviously deficient in savor. Extension of irrigation, attention to seed selection and adoption of superior milling varie ties, and fertilization of fields impoverished by constant cropping without returning the elements to the soil, are the means by which our rice crop can be augmented. It is necessary to reach a basis of production that will give the owners more return from the crops than the ordinary rate of legal interest. —Percy A. Hill.