We are lucky; we have not yet experienced rice-buying lines. And if the authorities would be on guard, we will not reach that condition. The irrigated rice farms of Bohol plus the rain-fed paddies may supply the local population if the stocks will be kept away from the hands of opportunistic traders. Besides, our local population knows how to cope with any rice scarcity that may happen by supplementing out carbohydrate requirements with alternate sources.

The human body, like any omnivorous animal needs proteins, fats and carbohydrates for energy, maintenance and growth. For repair and growth of body tissues, we need protein. Protein can be obtained from vegetable, fish and animal sources. Nutritionists say that the ideal protein intake should be composed of a mixture of vegetable and animal or fish protein. As long as our marine resources can support us, Bohol will have no protein scarcity.

For energy, we need both carbohydrates and fats. Those could be converted by enzymes into glycogen to be burned up for energy. If enough carbohydrate is available, fat is not needed. However, if the carbohydrate supply is exhausted, the body will have to burn up fat. Carbohydrates not immediately utilized will be converted into fats to be stored in some places in the body.

The human body derives carbohydrates from starch. Grains supply most of the human needs. If grains are not available, we get starch from other sources like taro, the gabi, yam or ubi, sweet potato or the lowly camote, cassava or camoteng kahoy or cooking bananas. Sometimes apale may be eaten or some wild root crop like the koot or boot, which like the wild kamoteng kahoy are poisonous if not processed properly since they contain hydro cyanic acid.

When food is abundant, our dietary preferences are discriminatory. As a status symbol, those in the upper strata and those who think they belong to the upper strata of the Philippine society eat bread or rice - white, highly polished rice, the mimis, which is no longer obtainable or the presently available wagwag. Or the imported long grain California rice. They would rather be dead than caught eating the brown rice of the lower class.

The middle class and those who belong to them would be contented with any rice available, even NFA as long as it is rice. Those who have to eat corn are considered low class although there are well to do Visayans who prefer corn, the number 10 or 12 ground size. Those who eat root crops are considered poor, the peons, the hillbillies, and the lowest in the pecking order. The status conscious Filipino will kill you if you will classified him in that order. However, we may no longer be able to support our prejudices.

Of the 300,000 hectares land area of the Philippines, only 30% is arable. Of the 30%, only a small portion could be farmed for rice and that portion could no longer produce enough rice for us. Rice is a wetland grain. It cannot grow efficiently away from the paddy. The Philippine archipelago does not have enough space for expanded rice farming to support a population, which grows by arithmetic progression. Land area had reached the limit. The dry land may support corn farms but root crops can thrive even on hillsides.

The Irish subsists mostly on potatoes. When the potato famine hit Ireland the Irish went to the USA. Good for them. However if our rice production can no longer support us, we cannot go to the USA just like before the War. We have to readjust. The ancestors of the Polynesians, Micronesians and Melanesians came from South East Asian region of rice eating peoples. When they reached the Pacific islands where rice cannot be grown sufficiently, they shifted to taro, breadfruit, yams and bananas.

For their protein needs sometimes they eat each other, adding European explorers and missionaries for variety until Christianity caught up with them. Someday we have to readjust like them, forgetting our prejudices and eat corn, yam, taro, and breadfruit. Forget the European explorers and missionaries as the former is extinct and the latter is busy denouncing the administration.