Rice is in danger of stealing headlines from gold. The price is going through the roof; it more than doubled in the last year! Together rice and gold can make an explosive mix.
In the Philippines they certainly do. Just take a look at what is going on! Miners there need the current rice crisis that is grabbing world attention like a hole in the head! A soaring gold price has already inflamed animosity and incited guerrilla attacks on their mines in this indebted and impoverished country.
The increased anger levels among the population that comes with a lack of their staple food are potentially incendiary. What good are soaring prices for gold exports if the country can't give its people enough food?
The Philippines is awash with minerals
Ironically, with an estimated $1 trillion of gold and minerals scattered across deposits in the islands, a revival of the long-dormant mines would solve a lot of problems. Estimates are that with just $8 billion of investment, over 200,000 jobs could be provided.
The Philippines is one of the most mineralised countries in the world - not that it looks it. From the aeroplane window flying in it looks to be all coconut plantations and fish farms!
The current administration, under President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, has pushed hard for radical changes to bring faster economic growth. Her tactics have been labelled "risky". Yet it has become one of Southeast Asia's fastest growing economies. Rapid industrialisation, however, is now taking its toll on what was a predominantly agricultural economy.
In attempt to keep miners' money coming in the government has set up special protection for them. The Investment Defense Force is what it's called. It has unenviable task of protecting the security of mining projects.
But it is not just a case of dealing with communist guerrilla raids here. The powerful Catholic bishops and environmental groups are also opposed to large-scale mining by foreign investors. What they point to is the danger to the environment and the population from cyanide and other chemicals used in extraction.
Many residents are already suffering the effects of mercury poisoning from contaminated food and water - the heavy metal is used to separate the gold from the ore.
A big problem is that, up until now, the most active miners have been the small-scale local groups, even down to lone prospectors. Now as major miners move in, local lobby groups maintain that the Philippine population gets a less than fair share of the wealth generated.
The Environmental and Natural Resources Secretary, Lito Atienza, has been telling delegates at the Asian Mining Congress that production in the Philippines will be booming in a couple of years. By 2011 gold production, he said, would reach 2.7m ounces a year, and silver 5m.
Is the government counting nuggets too soon?
Perhaps the government is in danger of counting its nuggets too soon? It is nothing if not ambitious. Achieving its plans would put it on the World Bank map as a mining country - the qualification being 6.5% of total exports originating from mines.
The Philippine government's bid to win in the international mining industry started quite a few years back. In 2003 it passed a new mining code to open up mining to he world by allowing 100% foreign ownership. Unfortunately three years later, this decision was put up for review. No-one seems too sure of the position now.
So far, of the 63 projects originally offered, ten have started commercial production. There are another 30 for which approval has been given. Potential investments announced by the government are worth $10.4 billion. Estimates in January put money invested at $1bn.
The guerrillas were quick to respond, striking first in 2005. "As the people intensify their struggle to assert national patrimony against the rapacity of foreign monopoly capitalists, the New People's army will carry out more and more punitive actions in response to the people's demand to stop the unbridled rapacious and destructive operations of big foreign mining companies," warned the local communist group. Its ideas of what should be done with the land are undisclosed.
Regardless, major players are certainly giving the Philippines a go. Well, at least the government is relatively friendly! Anyway, there is not much available in less turbulent parts of the world.
There are a number of the top miners there already. BHP Billiton, Anglo-American and Xstrata have dug in, for a start. Smaller ones, like Australia's El Dore and Indophil Resources, US Sagittarius Mines and China's Zijin are also trying their luck.
Of course, in investment terms, these small firms are more attractive, since their share prices will more directly reflect success in just one country. In the major miners this gets lost!
Major miners are not letting on how much they like the Philippines
The majors, however, are as major here as elsewhere. Xstrata exercised an option to acquire what could be the largest gold and copper deposits in Southeast Asia back at the end of 2007. This is serious stuff. To go into commercial production at least on this project would cost an estimated $2bn!
Xstrata is carrying out pre-feasibility studies right now, but hopes to start commercial production, an estimated 200,000 ounces a year of gold, by 2013. It was this project that communist guerrillas attacked in January. The New People's Army claimed credit. There are no reports that Xstrata is planning to turn tail.
Seductive though the resources in the Philippines are, most miners are not letting on how much they like it. Listening to their descriptions of siren voices elsewhere, one would think some were about to get up and go.
They point out the native Philippine mining group Didipio as an example: it will have taken 20 years to start mining by the time it is up and running by next year. Taxes, bureaucracy, corruption - they are all on the hate list! The Philippine government is dishing out heavy assurances on "Environmental protection", a well-used phrase in the ministers' vocabulary.
And it is rushing in to subsidise the rice.
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