THE government, through the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI), will spend some P60 million to conduct a National Nutrition Survey (NNS), according to the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB).

The new NNS will update the government’s official statistics on food, nutrition and the health situation, and the results are expected to be available by December 2009.

The NNS is conducted by the FNRI every five years with households as respondents. The 7th NNS will be conducted from May to December 2008.

The NSCB said the amount covers travel expenses worth P15.8 million, supplies worth P3.3 million and other maintenance and operating expenses worth P41.6 million. The FNRI will spend around P1,242 per respondent.

The survey will be carried out in 48,300 sample households in 3,400 enumeration areas with an estimated number of 300,000 individuals for the anthropometry component.

The rest of the survey components will be undertaken in 850 enumeration areas with 6,367 households as respondents. A total of 15 booklets of questionnaires will be used for the survey.

The survey will measure prevalence of underweight, underheight, thinness, overweight/obesity at the provincial level; Vitamin A deficiency, iodine-deficiency disorder  and iron-deficiency anemia; hypertension, goiter, parasitism; determine food and nutrient adequacy of households, as well as among children, pregnant women and lactating mothers; and determine socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of households and individuals.

The NNS will also provide data on mothers’ perception of the lack or inability to acquire food for the household, child and self; participation of households and individuals in the government’s health and nutrition programs; and determine prevalence of nutrition-related lifestyle diseases and risk factors.

The NNS is one of the designated statistical activities under Executive Order   352, the Designation of Statistical Activities that will Generate Critical Data for Decision Making of the Government and the Private Sector, issued on July 1, 1996.

Aside from serving as inputs to national plans and programs on nutrition, children, food fortification and prevention and control of noncommunicable disease, the NNS will also generate indicators that were identified to monitor the country’s progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

THE Philippines’ food import bill for 2008 may go up to close to 40 percent due to more expensive rice, wheat and dairy products, according to the latest Food Outlook released by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

DESPITE exhibiting some of the best practices in the Philippines, many of the best cities in the country still cannot be considered globally competitive, according to the International Finance Corp. (IFC).

THE local farm sector’s credit requirement was estimated at P200 billion in 2007, but banks were only able to finance P48 billion, or 24 percent, of this requirement, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said.

THE Department of Agriculture (DA) has allocated P500 million for its Organikong Pagsasaka program, a program that seeks to encourage farmers to use organic fertilizers.

THE Department of Agriculture (DA) will organize a new office to take charge of making the country’s dry lands productive, a Philippine participant in the ongoing training course on Dryland Farming Techniques for Developing Countries in Baoding, Hebei province, in China, reported.

THE government, through the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI), will spend some P60 million to conduct a National Nutrition Survey (NNS), according to the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB).

THE vice chairman of the House Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Development believes that the recent enactment into law of the Magna Carta for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) would create thousands of job opportunities and new businesses in the country.