Modeling The Rice Production And Consumption In The Philippines

CONTEXT: Despite being a large rice producer for several years, the Philippines has suffered a rice shortage; hence, the shortage is supplemented by imported rice. To cater to the needs of every Filipino for rice, the country has been heavily dependent on imported rice, and recently, it has been one of the top rice importers in the whole world. Several policies were imposed to increase production; however, supply-centered policies were not enough to solve this problem. A deep understanding of the food system is vital to adequately address the problem and explore potential policies that can be implemented. OBJECTIVE: This research aims to address this growing problem; this paper studies the interactions between rice production and consumption and the several factors that involve changes to production and consumption. These factors involving rice production and consumption have dynamic and complex behavior in the rice production system. There are currently several studies about the rice status in the Philippines; however, none tackles the country's rice-food system. METHODS: This study utilized system dynamics modeling to make scenarios on the country's rice food system and simulate the realistic values of rice production and consumption based on the PSA data. The importance of the system dynamics is to see the system's holistic view. It can be used to identify possible study areas that significantly impact the system, in this case, rice production and consumption in the Philippines. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Results showed that production and consumption interventions are crucial to improving the Philippines' self-sufficiency and import-dependency ratio. Increasing the harvested area has a more significant effect on improving the self-sufficiency ratio. It is necessary to appropriately invest and plan for better use of the available arable land for rice farming and instruct the agricultural community to improve the usage of agricultural land to increase their rice production. Besides the production increase, consumption reduction is another way to attain self-sufficiency in rice. Subsequently, people should be educated and instructed in rice consumption behavior and avoid excessive rice consumption. SIGNIFICANCE: This research can serve a purpose in studying potential rice substitutes to achieve rice sufficiency since reducing rice consumption per capita significantly affects the rice self-sufficiency ratio in the country. As a whole, this study can evaluate and demonstrate the application of various possible scenarios, and this can be a helpful decision support tool as the Philippines moves toward achieving rice self-sufficiency in the future.