It was in 1982, right after graduation in high school that I visited the school where I
spent my primary education. Right within the school playground was a small fishpond. I was curious why earth must be opened to give way to fish, so I thought. Alas, what was cultured was not fish but a snail – apple snail which is locally known as golden “kuhol”.
Golden “kuhol”, scientifically known as pomacea canaliculata, was introduced in the Philippines by no less than then First Lady Imelda Marcos, she who was tasked by the other half of the conjugal dictatorship, Ferdinand Marcos, to promote livelihood programs throughout the countryside. The meat of the snail was reputed to be high in protein content which the impoverished Filipinos badly needed.
That was in 1982. Even with much media hype, the snail did not find its way in the plates of the Filipinos. Poverty normally does not discriminate food on the basis of the palate. But not this one. Hunger had to be suppressed than ingesting the slimy creature. Poverty dehumanized people; but even among the poor, there is still dignity left, a kind of self-respect that can choose death over eating the snail.
The golden “kuhol” remained a media hype, the project of Imelda Marcos that never was.
December of last year, a sack of rice was within the P1,000.00 tag or around US$20. The price of rice today has more than doubled. Many have been queueing in market stalls just to buy cheap rice supplied by the government. Not only a few collapsed waiting for the long queues to purchase five kilos of rice.
The Philippine government, to augment local supply, has to import rice from countries like Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. There is nothing really wrong with importation. In the now shrinking global village, exchange of goods is rapidly increasing. The international market is readily available.
The storyline does not end here.
Way back in the early 70′s, the International Rice Research Center (IRRI) was established in the Philippines, specifically in the University of the Philippines- Los Banos. Then, Philippines was second largest economy, in Asia and a net rice exporter. The students from around Asia trooped to IRRI to learn modern techniques in rice production.
If Filipinos taught the Asian neighbors the ways of rice farming, then it may be asked: Why then are we importing rice from these countries? Is it the case of a novice learning more than the master? This frankly boggles the mind.
Then, one day, my father-in-law asked me to buy pesticide. That is insignificant request considering that every month, he supplies us with one sack of rice. Abide I did. To my surprise though, the pesticide he asked me to buy was precisely to kill golden “kuhol”. When I held the bottle of pesticide, I was gripped with recollection of that time I saw the fishpond of golden “kuhol”. The golden “kuhol” which was introduced to nourish the poor turned-out to be the menace that stifled rice farming.
A single golden “kuhol” can eat 7 to 24 seedlings a day and can consume one lettuce in one night. With its peculiar rapid reproduction capacity, you can have millions of snails in your ricefield in varying stages of growth, and even with the pesticides, the snails keep on reproducing. This means I have to buy pesticides every planting season. But the severity of the problem is reflected when my father-in-law told me that more often than not, his expenses for rice farming exceed the value of the harvest considering the menace the golden “kuhol” has wrought.
