Countries should try to become self-sufficient in food and basic necessities.

Aside from rice being the staple food here in our country, the Philippines, we should also be self sufficient in the production of our fruits and vegetables. As you can notice, generally most of the poor Filipinos cannot afford our fruits being sold in the market. It's because some of them are imported. Our fruits could only be affordable if we mass produce them all over the country. But since some of our provinces don't have climates suitable for other fruit bearing fruits and vegetables they become expensive when they are "imported" from other provinces. Much so if they are imported from other countries. The government should also allot a big budget on agriculture so that other technology could be tapped on how we could also mass produce our fruits and vegetables aside from rice.

I admire your idealism however reality is not exactly compatible with your views. Your argument is nothing but valid but you have to understand that somehow technology, the government and the passage of time conspired to make our reality happened. The Philippines is an agricultural country, therefore, the land can provide us with nature's bounty. However, our country's potential to become an agriculture greatness was halted due to the government's lack of interest in this area and turning to technology and development instead. While the said two factors are very important for progress, we lost something that is already our advantage. Another point will be is that the population grew so fast and steady that rice fields are being cleared to provide housing for the growing numbers of people.

It's good to point out that a measure of self-sufficiency is needed for a country to progress but I think it's related more with capitalizing on creating reserves. For example, the US imports still oil from the Middle East even though they have their own Texas oil fields, a resource that's actually more than sufficient in that regard. In this case it is the other way around: the creation of reserves can be an indicator of progress but is not necessarily a factor that leads to it.

Totally agree!!! Food is THE most basic need of people and contries should try to do their best to produce enough for their needs. So, they don't become dependent on others contries to supply food, which has a number of disventages. By producing our own food, we become economically independent and produce jobs too. An example. My country favorite food is the meat, we eat a lot of it. And we have a production big enough to feed all us, but at some time we have to import some of it, don't know the exact reasons, but is was shamefull that a contry with lot of chances and space to raise cattle livestocks was importing it.

i can't agree more with what you said mayrah, am 100% with you. A country needs to reach it's food sufficiency, or else it will be blackmailed by those oppressive superpowers, who use such thing to control other countries policies & even force them to join wars that doesn't even concern them. My country has limited resources, but economical growth is great according to international ranking. Nonetheless, many necessities we still import them, i suppose a country should have different climates like the usa, who have large continent, to reach the food suffeciency.

This is a great idea, but I wonder if the large variance in a country's ability to do this compared to an economically advanced country would affect things. Could it be that some sort of trade of one country's strengths for another one's would be useful? Thought provoking post :)

Singapore has been successful using imported goods rather than production of their own.