The Importance Of Rice Production

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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. …show more content…

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

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