This seminar explores why the Philippines remains vulnerable to rice crises, arguing that import dependence and unequal market power weaken smallholder farmers and rural livelihoods.
16:00 to 17:30 Canberra time (AEST) / 08:00 to 09:30 Central European Summer Time (CEST) / 14:00 to 15:30 Philippine Standard Time (PST)
Segmented markets, chokepoints, and the limits of liberalisation: Rethinking the Philippine rice economy
Despite being a nation of rice eaters, the Philippines’ smallholder rice economy remains structurally fragile. This talk asks why a country with a long history of rice crises continues to struggle to sustain domestic production, and advances two related claims.
First, importation has long served as the Philippine state’s principal instrument for managing rice crises, but this recurrent reliance has displaced rather than resolved the challenge of sustaining domestic production reform.
Second, this pattern cannot be understood by assuming a unified national rice market. The Philippine rice economy is better seen as a segmented field in which traders, millers, creditors, and other intermediaries control chokepoints that shape price formation, timing of sale, and the distribution of value. Dominant policy approaches have framed rice competitiveness too narrowly: they identify low yields, high production costs, and high gross marketing margins, but leave insufficient room for analysing the relations that systematically weaken farmers’ bargaining position in the market. Supporting rural well-being requires more than improved seeds or machines; it requires policy attention to mobility, bargaining power, reciprocity, and the social infrastructures of hanapbuhay.
Research presented in this webinar was supported through the ANU Philippines Institute Grants and Awards Scheme. For more information, see the ANU Philippines Institue's Website here: https://philippinesinstitute.anu.edu.au/grants-awards
The ANU Philippines Institute Research Seminar Series is a recurring seminar series that showcases the work of scholars working on political, social and cultural issues in the Philippines and the wider region, with the goal of encouraging greater exchange, collaboration and networking amongst the research community.
If you require accessibility accommodations, please contact the event organiser.
Photo by Alex Traveler - stock.adobe.com
Event Speakers
Dr Eric D.U. Gutierrez
Eric D.U. Gutierrez is an award-winning investigative journalist turned scholar-practitioner whose work examines how power, violence, and survival intersect across illicit economies, conflict, and agrarian change. His research spans Asia and Africa, combining policy engagement with fieldwork, and focuses on agrarian change, coping economies, and everyday survival.