MANILA, Philippines -- Instead of forming a rice cartel, Senator Edgardo Angara said Southeast Asian nations should boost cooperation in ensuring food security in the region.

“With escalating global food prices threatening to increase the ranks of 1.5 billion Asians subsisting in less than $2 a day, ASEAN governments should now start cooperating towards regional self-sufficiency,” said Angara, chair of the committee on agriculture and food.

Angara said that under this set up, members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations facing rice shortages could tap into the regional bloc’s Emergency Rice Reserve, which was set up in 1979 and whose stocks were contributed by members.

He also urged ASEAN countries to increase their contributions to the emergency food stocks to meet the increasing demands for food by the region’s growing population and changes in international trades.

“For instance, the rice reserve’s initial stocks, amounting to 50,000 metric tons, do not even reach half a day’s combined consumption of ASEAN countries,” he said.

Angara also said the process of requesting and granting emergency rice should be modified.

“Because the current set up (requires) negotiations at the bilateral level -- thus placing the country in need under the mercy of the supplier-country -- not one ASEAN member has used it for 25 years,” the senator said. John Alliage Morales, contributor