Filipinos love their rice and want to ask for additional serving to go with their favourite viand. But with the price of rice spiralling upwards, they may have to rethink their rice-eating lifestyle.

Crops expert said households that cannot keep up with the rising cost of rice actually have eight food alternatives they can set on their tables instead of the calorie-rich staple.

Dr Jocelyn Eusebio, director of the crops research division of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development, is suggesting cassava, sweet potato, taro, potato, bean sprouts, nami, saba banana and white corn as crop substitutes, which are in fact ‘cheaper and more nutritious’.

While rice could contribute 53 per cent of energy, 37 per cent of protein and 29 per cent of iron to the body, one could get adequate amounts of nutrients from the eight ‘neglected crops’, Eusebio pointed out.

“They are cheaper to produce and buy as well. Even households could plant them in their backyards,” Eusebio said. She noted the sufficiency of the Philippines’ supply of these crops to significantly reduce hunger.

Planting materials can be sourced from various government agencies such as the Visayas State University-Philippine Root Crops Research and Training Centre, Bureau of Plant Industry and the Department of Agriculture.

In 2006 alone, the country has produced 2.29 million metric tonnes of saba, which is a good source of protein, potassium, calcium, carbohydrates, fats, calories and fibre, according to Eusebio.

The banana variety, which accounted for 34 per cent of the total banana production two years ago, is widely grown in some parts of the country too.

Eusebio also noted an increased demand for white corn in the Visayas and Mindanao regions, by 38 per cent and 42 per cent, respectively from 1990 to 2003.

White corn, an energy-dense food mainly harvested from the fields of Mindanao, gives more calcium, beta carotene and protein than rice, according to the crops expert.

A major product in Mindanao, Bicol, eastern Visayas and central Visayas, the cassava gives 145 kcal per 100 grams. Eusebio pegged the production cost at 1 peso per kilo (.02 US cents).

Taro (called gabi locally), nami (wild yam), bean sprouts and potatoes are also good sources of carbohydrates, giving 78 to 110 kcal per 100 grams of each root crop.

But Eusebio admitted that there must be an intensive advocacy for these food alternatives in order to relieve the Filipinos’ dependence on rice.
Science and technology secretary Estrella Alabastro agreed saying that it would take time to convince Filipinos to shift from rice to these crops. “We can’t change their food habits overnight... it needs a lot of advocacy,” she added.

In Oriental Mindoro in central Philippines, farmers have been forced to subsist on root crops and sell their livestock to make ends meet.
The farmers have to make do with nami because life had become difficult for their families since the price of rice started to increase sharply early this year. Prices have gone up from 50 pesos (US$1.20) to 85 pesos ($2) per salop (a little more than two kilos).

Some of them, like Estelita Bamo, has to grow peanuts and breed livestock in order to afford rice.

Bienvenido Eleccion, another farmer, said poor families could only afford to buy three kilos of rice at a time.

“We eat more nami now, our food since the time of our ancestors,” said student Maricel Dumpaw.

Nami is a root crop that the Mangyans (an indigenous group found in Mindoro in the Philippines) eat when the rice harvest is lean.

“It is planted in the mountain. We dig it, peel its skin off and scrape it. We let it stay in water for three days before boiling it. Since we have less money now due to the crisis, we eat nami three times daily—at breakfast, lunch and dinner,” Dumpaw said.

Nami has to go through three days of cooking to remove all toxins in the plant.

She said some Mangyan people also resorted to chewing more betel nuts to ease their hunger because they could not afford to buy food regularly.

Betel nut, locally called bunga, is usually chewed with tobacco, lime and a kind of leaf from a tree. (By JOCELYN UY In Manila/ The Philippines Daily Inquirer/ AsiaNews)