When Governments Carelessly Risk a Food Crisis
Price caps on rice could destabilize the market at a time when nations can least afford instability to feed their populations and others.
An employee tends to rice crops at the International Rice Research Institute headquarters in Los Banos, the Philippines, on June 21, 2023.
Photographer: Veejay Villafranca/BloombergIt’s a diagram that Economics 101 students learn by heart. It puts together supply, demand and prices in a single chart. The graph is the stuff that makes markets tick, whether for iPhones or bowls of rice.
As an associate professor at the School of Economics at the University of the Philippines, prior to her move into government, Cielo Magno imprinted the supply-and-demand chart on her students’ minds. Typically, supply slopes upward: When prices rise, suppliers are willing to produce more; demand generally slopes downward: At higher prices, consumers buy less.
Then Magno became her country’s finance undersecretary, building a reputation for speaking her mind. On Sept. 1, she posted a common version of the diagram on social media: “I miss teaching…,” she added. Soon after, she was fired. Though Magno didn’t explicitly say it then, through her post, she was questioning the government’s decision to introduce a price cap for rice.