Over the past few weeks, public awareness about the urgent imperative of national food security was significantly heightened with the media’s coverage of the issue of rice importation. This burning issue came out amid President Duterte’s pronouncement of domestic procurement by the National Food Authority from Filipino farmers at a time of peak harvest. Rice importation was highlighted by the clamor of food-security experts to firm up the country’s buffer stock of the staple, especially for the coming lean months. In this regard, the President signed Executive Order 23 extending the quota on imported rice at 805,200 metric tons under the minimum access volume for three more years.
Over the years, food security and food self-sufficiency, especially in rice, has been a cherished dream of the country. Since the inception of Masagana 99, which made the Philippines self-sufficient in rice for a while in the late 1970s, a succession of rice programs have been launched by the government aimed at attaining self-sufficiency in the staple.
The Food and Agriculture Organization states that “food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” When this access is denied, food insecurity can spark social unrest, leading to national insecurity. Food insecurity, aside from terrorism and other external challenges, is, therefore, a significant threat to national security. For instance, in 2008 when there was a spike in food prices, there were riots and unrest in various parts of the world. Sustainable food security is, therefore, an indispensable requisite to national security.
In 1996 at the World Food Summit in Rome, the Heads of States reaffirmed the right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food, consistent with the right to adequate food and the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger. They pledged political will and common and national commitment to achieving food security for all and to support an ongoing effort to eradicate hunger in all countries, with an immediate objective of reducing the number of undernourished people to half its level.
Poverty is the root cause of hunger and food insecurity, so increasing people’s income is indispensable in improving people’s access to food. Hence, national food security should be undertaken in the context of improving the income and livelihoods of the people, especially those in the rural areas.
Sustainable food security should equitably benefit smallholder farmers and consumers. Climate change-related events have damaged farms of major food-producing countries, which decreased global food stocks to all-time lows. Hence, there is less food for export as countries move to secure domestic demand. Moreover, the Asean common market poses a tremendous challenge in making Filipino farmers competitive with their counterparts in the region.
Amid the substantial increase in food supply, we consider it intolerable that more than 3 million Filipino families do not have enough food to eat. We import about 37 percent of our cereal requirements, which include rice and corn. We also import 98 percent of our milk and other dairy products. Although we are a net exporter of fish in terms of value, we import more fish by weight. While we earn $3.14 billion from our top agricultural exports, we spend almost double the amount on top agricultural imports.
In spite of available technology and top caliber manpower, short-term domestic food-production programs, rising food prices, reduced global food supply, as well as natural and man-made disasters aggravated by climate change, prevent the country from attaining sustained food security.
The country needs to harness strong political will to move on and erase our global reputation as one of the world’s largest rice importer amid the presence of reputed agricultural research institutions and a critical mass of highly trained scientific manpower in the country.
A rising “perfect storm”, which is a confluence of climate change, rising food prices, energy crisis, land degradation, loss of biodiversity and population explosion, is the biggest threat to food security and global agriculture in this century. The country’s farmers will be the hardest hit due mainly to increasing water scarcity, frequent droughts, rising temperatures, new pests and diseases, shorter growing seasons and degraded natural resources, especially in rainfed and upland areas. Moreover, they spend about 60 percent of their income on food. Due to the foregoing, the challenges of hunger and food insecurity are likely to persist, unless urgent, determined, coordinated and sustained action is taken.
There is, therefore, a need to adopt supportive policies and sustained investments supporting food production, postproduction and procurement. To bring this about, agriculture must be modernized, which will synergize linkages of the whole value chain from pre-production, production, processing, marketing and consumption. This will maximize productivity and add value to benefit all the players in the system. The main drivers of agriculture modernization are programs propelled by science-based innovations, policy reforms, sound management and governance systems, a new breed of entrepreneurs, empowered farming communities and market-oriented agro-based industries.
Moreover, together with providing food assistance to the poorest Filipino families, effective contingency systems should be established for smallholder farmers and their communities. This will enable them to be prepared at all times and be resilient with the effects of natural calamities and be able to meet transitory food and seed needs.
Propelled by a strong political will, we need to modernize agriculture now to fulfill the country’s cherished dream of achieving food security and national security for all times.
****
Dr. Rex L. Navarro is a member of the Coalition for Agriculture Modernization of the Philippines and former director of Strategic Marketing and Communication, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Andra Pradesh, India.