In review and in prospect
The formula for becoming a contributor of real value to the world economy is simple. A country needs access to energy and materials and the capability to employ those into the production of stuff the world values enough to pay good money for. The latter part of that equation is crucial — capability. Communists have a term for it: the means of production. The means to produce stuff is not just about factories. It is about the intellectual capital to design, fund, and build these. For that, you need business enterprise.
The latter-day story of the Philippines’ efforts to become a recognised player on the right side of the equation of the global market is to beg the rich world for “foreign investment” under the premise that these are essential for it to build the means of production. This is because much of what keeps its enormous population of more than 110 million people alive is foreign in origin. Life, after all, also consumes energy in the form of food.
So let’s get started with the basics — food. Applying global yield standards, a hectare of farmland is capable of feeding about 10 people. Using a very rough back-of-the-envelope calculation assuming that there is about 12 million hectares of farmland in the Philippines producing crops entirely for human consumption at modern yield rates, this translates to domestic land capacity to feed 130 million people. Good news so far, right? Unfortunately, this being a rough estimate, the figure does not take into account a significant chunk of that produce being diverted to animal feed and losses incurred in handling and transport (the latter, when one considers the Philippines’ primitive logistics infrastructure, is a lot).
It is important too to note that the 10-person-per-hectare feeding metric is only made possible by a large — and expensive — input of artificial fertilisers. Nitrate and phosphate fertilisers require materials and energy to produce, both of which are in short supply (if present at all) in the Philippines. Imports fill that gap. 60 to 70 percent of the required fertiliser input into Philippine agriculture is imported and the import bill is approaching a billion dollars a year. Fertilisers manufactured domestically also have a large import component because synthesis of these nutrient compounds from raw materials is an energy-intensive process. This means that prices of even locally-manufactured synthetic fertilisers are a function of global fossil fuel prices.
When it comes down to physical realities, it is easy to see what really matters in a national economy. Economies burn fuel and the Philippines’ access to fuel is tenuous at best. As if the fact that most fuel consumed by the Philippine economy is foreign in origin, most of the technologies that burn fuel to yield more and produce more are foreign too. Have Filipinos overcommitted to their enormous population? Poverty is not politics. There are physical realities that underpin it.
Last week’s blog posts
Bongbong Marcos: Another Noynoy Aquino and another Kamaganak Inc in the making?
January 23, 2023 by Ramon Ortoll
"But the truth is we’ve fallen behind our ASEAN neighbors. They are more preferred as investment destinations. For as long as the structural deficiencies exist, we will not attract foreign investments at the same level as that hooked in by Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam among others."
SO WHAT if the Marcos family is rich?
January 22, 2023 by benign0
"Indeed, even before one gets to the flawed point being made by noted Yellowtard 'thought leader' Gerry Cacanindin, there is a wealth of outright falsehoods within the tweet that any schoolgirl can easily unpack."
Suicide is a MORTAL SIN according to the Roman Catholic Church
January 21, 2023 by benign0
"Filipinos are among the most religious people in the world, the doctrine they ought to be latching onto to guide them into coming to terms with suicide is right under their noses."
An onion-skinned people crying over onions
January 19, 2023 by benign0
"Filipinos are back to the old habit of sweating the small stuff: onions, Filipino blood running through beauty contestants’ veins, and Alex Gonzaga."