Road To Food Sufficiency! Stop Manipulated, Oppressive, Antiquated Marketing System

Yesterday, I was tagged in a photo posted by FB user Penong Sebuya Gonzales which showed hundreds of kilos of red ripe tomatoes reportedly from Lantapan, Bukidnon dumped along the side of the road because of very low market prices.
The posted photos were actually a replay of so many similar tragic scenes of endings for farmers who ventured into vegetable production without an assurance of market absorption.
Ang problema natin sa Pilipinas ay hindi kung kaya ba ng mga magsasaka (including aquaculture investors) na magparami ng pagkain kundi kung sino ang bibili at magkano ang presyo.
Our marketing system in a geographically fragmented country with over 7,000 islands is controlled by private traders plus dozens of middlemen whose main concern is profit and not food security or nation-building.
This was one of the major recommendations I submitted to National Security Adviser Sec. Clarita Carlos who asked me to help her craft the Food Security component of this administration’s National Security Strategy.
The policy statement made by President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. yesterday stressing the need to support local production rather than depend highly on importation provides the impetus for the Food Self-Sufficiency program of this administration.
I identified the Food Shortage faced by the world today as the most urgent concern and added medium term and long-term programs, as well.
To address the impending Food Crisis which is the President’s top concern, I made three very basic recommendations:
1. Identify the basic food commodities needed daily by Filipino families. (I identified Rice, Fish, Chicken, Meat, Vegetables and Fruits.)
2. Refresh and update the National Food Supply and Demand Map crafted towards the end of my 3-year stint as Secretary of Agriculture which identified which towns or provinces produced commodities in excess of what they needed.
3. Bring in the National Food Authority (NFA) and the Food Terminal Inc. to serve as the government’s food logistics agencies which would buy the excess products in specific areas to be repositioned and sold in the big cities or provinces where the goods are needed. This is a role which government could not yield to the private sector because there are food sources whose distance from the consumer centers would not make business profitable.
4. Open People’s Food Malls (PFM) to be operated by NFA/FTI in the population centers, especially in Metro Manila where urban dwellers and consumers would have access to farm fresh and affordable food.
This is not a new idea.
This is just the revival of the original roles of NFA, FTI and Kadiwa during the time of former President Ferdinand Marcos and the institutional implementation of the concept of Tienda and MinDATienda which we staged during the term of President Rodrigo Duterte.
(The ideas I shared here on how to address the Food Crisis, including the medium-term and long-term solutions will be discussed lengthily in the book which I am working on titled: The Joseph Principle – Feeding Millions in 7,641 Islands.)
#KungGustoMaramingParaan!
#GovernanceIsCommonSense!
(Photo of the Lantapan tomatoes was downloaded from the FB page of Penong Sebuya Gonzales.)