Hunger hounds farmers, fishers; still, UN cites PH efforts at rice security

Hunger hounds the country’s food producers, but the picture is not all that bleak. Despite setbacks, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) cited the Philippines for being on the right track in its efforts to attain self-sufficiency in rice.

FAO said the Aquino government was on the right track in pushing for rice self-sufficiency, noting this was the right response to high and volatile food prices.

A report by Oxfam International-Philippines on Friday said Filipino fishermen and farmers are the two poorest sectors of Philippine society, and are also the most vulnerable to hunger.

Filipino farmers have a poverty incidence of 40 percent and fishers 50 percent.

“The great paradox is that they are surrounded by the means to produce food, and yet they are the most vulnerable to hunger,” Oxfam said in its report marking World Food Day today.

Oxfam is a United Kingdom-based umbrella organization of several groups from all over the world whose work involves poverty alleviation and related concerns.

According to the Department of Agriculture (DA), the agriculture and fishery sectors contribute nearly 20 percent to the country’s gross domestic product.

Total gross value of agricultural output in the first semester of 2011 reached P706.4 billion at current prices, 16 percent more than the 2010 level in the same period, the department said in its first semester report.

Oxfam’s report mirrored DA data on farmers’ income, which showed that farming in the Philippines cannot support a family. According to the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics, a farmer’s monthly average income is about P20,000.

The Philippines also has to grapple with the challenges of food production. The country loses about 822,000 metric tons of rice every year—about the same amount the country imported in 2011—due to inefficient production and wasteful consumption, Oxfam said.

Of that number, 449,000 metric tons are lost during the postharvest process, while 37,000 metric tons are classified as spoiled. The rest are leftovers.

Hope glimmers

Oxfam also noted that forest degradation destroyed agricultural lands. Topsoil loss from logging and land clearing reached 5.2 million hectares.

Oxfam also warned that agribusiness companies, which led to investments on 5.6 million hectares of land for biofuels and agricultural exports, could squeeze the supply for food.

But hope glimmers.

In the next two years, the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) plans to irrigate 250,000 hectares of land. “This will make the Philippines rice-sufficient by 2013,” NIA head Antonio Nangel said.

Government efforts to meet irrigation targets have suffered due to delays in the release of funds.

Nangel said that so far, irrigation projects had been completed in only 28 percent of the targeted 33,344 hectares of new areas under its 2011 targets.

“The rest are ongoing projects,” he said, adding that the NIA only received its funds last May.

FAO said the Philippine agriculture department’s program to make the country self-sufficient in rice would protect it from the prospect of low supply and high prices of grains in the future, which is expected to continue in the years to come.

Agriculture officials said strengthening local rice production would make the Philippines less dependent on rice imports and save the government much needed cash, while boosting the income of farmers.

Price roller-coasters

Like Oxfam, FAO warned that food insecurity would persist in many countries due to the fluctuating prices of goods.

“In 2010, grain prices shot up 50 percent and continued to soar into 2011 before starting to dip somewhat in the second quarter of 2011,” FAO said.

“At that point, what would happen next was very much an open question. Economists believed, however, that the kind of price roller-coasters experienced since 2006 are likely to recur in the coming years,” it added.

In 2010, the Philippine government bought over 2 million metric tons of rice costing $1.2 billion from abroad, making it the world’s largest rice importer that year. In 2011, the government imported 860,000 metric tons.

To increase paddy production, the Philippines is banking on successful implementation of irrigation system repairs, establishment of more postharvest facilities, and construction of farm-to-market roads, particularly in Mindanao.

Typhoon damage

Early this year, the DA estimated Philippine rice production to reach 17.46 million tons this year. In August, Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala revised this target to 17.3 million MT due to typhoons.

The DA is expected to change the target again as the last four typhoons damaged nearly a million metric tons of rice in Luzon, where half of the country’s rice supply comes from.

In the first semester of 2011, the Philippines’ agriculture sector grew by 5.48 percent on the back of strong crops performance, which was aided by favorable weather conditions.

Owing to the typhoons in the second semester, Alcala said he expected the crops sector to “plateau” in the fourth quarter.