“What food do Filipinos prefer to eat?; How do we produce it?; Where do we produce it? Could our resources – land and the seas – sustain the country’s food needs 30 years down the road?”
These questions were raised in the book I wrote which was published April 2015, Feeding Millions, to emphasize the need for a well-planned demand-driven Phliippine Agriculture.
One of the first things I worked on when President Rody Duterte appointed me as his Agriculture Secretary was to conduct a study in partnership with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization to look into the Food Consumption of Filipinos.
The FAO provided a grant fund of $300,000 for the conduct of the National Food Consumption Quantification Survey (NFCQS) which aimed to determine the food requirements of Filipinos in the next 50 years.
The study covered the following questions:
1. What food do Filipinos prefer to eat?
2. How much of this food do they consume?
3. Where and how do we produce this food?
4. How much of this food do we need to produce for Filipinos 10, 20 or 50 years from now?
5. Up to what point will the land and aquatic resources of the country be able to supply the food needs of a bigger population?
6. How do we produce food using less land and water?
7. How do we wean Filipino consumers from their dependence on food commodities which require large areas to grow?
At the start of his Presidency, I briefed President Duterte that even if the country achieves rice sufficiency, maintaining the level of food security will be fleeting and temporary unless the massive population growth is checked.
Thie NFCQS which has been completed by the FAO is considered as one of the most significant institutional reforms and innovations in the country’s Food Security Program.
(The other innovation is the National Color-Code Agriculture Guide Map which will help farmers determine what crops are suitable in their areas. This is now accessible on line through www.farmersguidemap.gov.ph.)
With the completion of the NFCQS, the next move should be to identify the food commodities needed by Filipinos and where we could grow these.
Given the fact that the Philippines is a geographically fragmented country, government must now come up with a well-planned food production, consolidation and distribution program to ensure that food supplies are made available to consumers at the lowest possible cost.
I have always maintained that government could not just leave to the private sector the task of repositioning food supplies because by doing such, the risk of a disruption of the supply chain could happen, especially in times of calamities.
There is one government-owned and controlled corporation, the Food Terminal Inc., whose mandate is tailor-fit for this function.
Guided by the NFCQS, the FTI could be supported through legislation with additional funds to be able to estabish more food consolidation points in the production areas and distribution centers surrounding the big population centers.
Based on the demand of the consumers and the market, Filipino food producers could be guided by the regional FTIs on what to produce thus ensuring food supply stability.
Then, we start planning what we need to do for the next 50 years to ensure enough food for the next genration of Filipinos.
#GovernanceIsCommonSense!
#KungGustoMaramingParaan!
#FoodSecurityIsAboutTheFuture!
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