Addressing Food Crisis! (Last of 3-Parts) Practical, Doable interventions To Avert Looming Food Crisis

The need to produce protein-rich food is urgent and to continue with sloganeering and dangling of funds that are not accessible is simply raising false hopes which could lead us to a food crisis.

Here are some of the practical and doable interventions which the government could undertake which I have categorized into immediate, medium term and long term:

Immediate:

1. The 3-month Closed Fishing Season in Mindanao will be lifted March 1. This would mean bountiful fish catch, especially the pelagic species. At peak fishing season, the price of pelagic species could be as low as P5 per kilo.

The Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) could help the Department of Agriculture in identifying the fishing grounds where the supply could come from.

All that is needed is for DA through the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources to deploy trucks with refrigerated container vans and brought to Metro Manila via Fastcrafts most of which are underutilized now.

The cost of transport will have to subsidized by DA just to be able to stabilize the prices of protein-rich commodities in the markets of Metro Manila.

To institutionalize this, DA BFAR should establish ice-making and cold storage facilities in the fishing grounds as recommended years ago.

2. Growing broiler chicken takes only 25 to 27 days but currently the local poultry industry is still recovering from the losses due to the over-importation and the massive culling during the COVID 19 lockdowns.

The fastest turn-around and recovery time for the local poultry industry is six months and this is mainly because of the lack of chicks to be loaded in the empty poultry houses.

The cost of day-old chicks (DOC)now is P60 mainly because there is no supply and with that investment, it is understandable that dressed chicken in the market would be as high as P160 to P180 per kilo.

Instead of importing dressed chicken in cuts whose shipping would take at least 45 days, the best option is to import hatching eggs which could be brought in via air cargo.

The government could subsidize the hatching eggs and also encourage poultry farms to load up and produce through incentives which would include subsidized feeds and assurance of a farm gate price.

For Mindanao, the farms to be enrolled in this program could be validated by MinDA.

Medium Term:

1. Cattle Fattening takes only 100 days but since it would take a few months to establish cattle feedlots and import steers or culled cows from Australia, this could take about six months to operationalize.

For Mindanao, this could be implemented in coordination with the Department of Interior and Local Governments, the local government units and the Development Bank of the Philippines.

However, to fast-track this program, DA could come in through the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) and provide No-Interest Loans to the Mindanao LGUs (or other LGUs in Visayas and Luzon) to buy an initial fattening stock of 50,000 heads valued at about P3-B.

For Mindanao, the Livestock Industry Development Program blueprint has already been crafted by MinDA and readily implementable.

2. Fish Cage Farming is another option for medium term intervention since Bangus in fish cages would need only 5 to 6 months to mature.

When I was Agriculture Secretary, I required each BFAR Regional Director to ensure that at least 300 fish cages are established in their regions.

Most of the Directors achieved that while others did not but this program contributed greatly to the positive growth of the fisheries sector, the first after several decades, under the Duterte Presidency.

Again, the limiting factors here are the high cost of feeds, the expense needed for the Norwegian Fish Cages and the post-harvest facilities.

.The recommendation here is for DA through ACPC again to be provided with the pump-priming funds to boost Aquaculture Production.

Long Term:

1. It would take about 2 years at the earliest for the Hog Industry to recover given the threat of the ASF which poses great risks to hog farmers.

With backyard hog raisers fearful of investing again in hog raising, the “Hogstel Program” or community common hog raising facility proposed by MinDA under the Islands of Hope strategy is the most practical option.

This should be implemented in ASF-Free Zones which were earlier indicated in a map posted in this page.

As a national strategy, bio-secure hog breeding facilities should be established in selected provinces indicated as Green Zones in the map which includes Western and Central Regions of Mindanao and the islands along with Palawan, Mindoro, Panay, Negros, Bohol, Siquijor, Camiguin and Samar.

This is where the national government must focus its interventions in restarting and reviving the hog industry in coordination with the local government units.

2. Other long term programs to be considered are Cattle Breeding using modern Artificial Insemination on existing Cow population including an investment by LGUs in the procurement of heifers from the nearest soures like Australia.

With the current cattle population of only 2.5-million heads, the Cattle Industry is one of the most overlooked sources of food for Filipinos.

Goat Raising for meat, free-range chicken farming and duck raising, especially in areas surrounding Mindanao Marshes and lakes are easily doable interventions.

These are all practical and doable interventions and the involvement of the LGUs, DILG, DA and MinDA, for Mindanao, is needed.

Done fast, the markets will have sufficient supply of chicken and fish by December and we could avert a looming food crisis.

The key operating words are: LET US DO THIS FAST NOW!

#GovernanceIsCommonSense!

#EconomicsOfTheFarmBoy!

#KungGustoMaramingParaan!

#hindiitokayangpressrelease!

(First photo shows an image capture of the great Tamban surge in Labason, Zamboanga del Norte. Others show broiler farms, fish cages, cattle feedlots and other food production activities.)