With 30-million hectares of land and the 5th longest coastline in the world at 36,289-kilometers, the Philippines could very well produce enough food for its 110-million population.
So, why are we importing even our staple food like rice and fish?
One of the greatest anomalies in Philippine governance is the fact that those who chart our national development directions, which include project prioritization and budget allocation, have not even ventured to the countryside to see for themselves the vast potentials of our land and the capability of our people to produce enough food for the country.
Our problem in the Philippines is not the lack of food supply but the very poor food positioning and logistics issues which make it difficult and expensive for farmers and fishermen to bring their products to the market.
In August of 2015, I rushed the printing of the book “Feeding Millions” which I called the Blueprint of the Agriculture Directions of the country under President Rody Duterte.
The book was actually a compilation of ideas that both I and then Mayor Rody Duterte discussed to address agricultural productivity and food sufficiency.
Early on, however, I felt that there were forces within our group who did not favor the Food Sufficiency Advocacy which I carried as Secretary of Agriculture.
My request that the four agri-related agencies which were placed under the Office of the President during the Aquino Administration – National Food Authority, National Irrigation Administration, Philippine Coconut Authority and the Fertilizer and Pesticides Authority – be returned to the DA was not acted upon until September 2018.
In fact, it was only after the artificial “Rice Crisis” in Aug. 2018 when the NFA, the PCA and FPA were placed back under the DA while NIA is still under the Office of the Cabinet Secretary until today.
The sucker punch to the solar plexus of the Food Sufficiency Program was the move of the Economic Managers to open the Philippine Rice Market, which later included the pork and chicken market, to massive importation by declaring that the country could not achieve rice sufficiency because it did not have the area needed for rice production.
I have not given up on this advocacy, however, and until today, even with my transfer to a smaller agency following my head-on collision with the powerful Economic Team led by Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez, I still maintain that the Philippines could be food sufficient.
All that is needed is for a change in the mindset of our Economic Planners that, given our experience with the effect of COVID 19 on global food supply availability, the Philippines must produce its own food.
When that is done, everything else will follow.
Regional Food Consolidation and Processing Terminals should be established in critical production and distribution areas of the country where farmers and fishermen will just deliver their produce and government will handle the consolidation, processing and distribution.
Guided by a market study on the goods needed in specific areas and regions, the farmers and fishermen will just be asked to produce and unburdened of the difficult task of finding a market for their produce.
The needed institutional infrastructure is already present, the Food Terminal Inc., a subsidiary of the National Food Authority, which could handle this task if given the needed financial support to operate as a Government-Owned and Controlled Corporation involved in food consolidation, processing, distribution and trading.
Equip the FTI Regional Food Consolidation and Processing Terminals with logistical equipment, including refrigerated Food Boats to consolidate the fish production of the different regions of the country to be delivered to the FTI food distribution terminal in the Greater Manila Area and everything will be operational in less than two years.
The Philippines could feed its own people given its resources and it could even become a major food producer in this part of the world.
All that is needed is for us to believe in ourselves and in the capability of our farmers and fishermen, along with the thousands who will be able to work in the allied industries and the long production chain, to produce food for the nation.
#KungGustoMaramingParaan!
#GovernanceIsCommonSense!
(Photo shows two locally-build MMOVs of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) commissioned as BRP Lapulapu and BRP Francisco Dagohoy by President Duterte in 2018. The other old photo shows the FTI facility in Taguig, Metro Manila.)
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