Food (In)security and the Price of Rice Self-Sufficiency

Abstract

The commonly touted solution to achieve food security has always been articulated as achieving self-sufficiency in rice. Since the 1960s, various government regimes have articulated strategies and executed actions to achieve this much-vaunted goal. It has been over half a century but we have yet to realize this dream. At this point, if we look at the hard facts and the numbers, the picture it paints is not pretty. Achieving rice self-sufficiency comes with a price and let's take a sober look at what it really costs.