Administration after administration is coming to the conclusion that the future of the Philippines—to a large extent – hinges on improving the agriculture sector, as it will address inclusive growth, poverty alleviation and, finally, keep the young ones on the farm.
Has it worked so far? No. As a result, more farmers or employment in agriculture are shifting to industrial and information-technology sectors. As a result, there were mismatches or misalignment of jobs and food inadequacy because no more manpower in the agricultural area.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) provides recommendation as to a mechanism in solving the gaps between poverty in the streets, food inadequacy, employment and malnutrition. The recommendations must be paired with the following programs:
1.) Urban agriculture;
2.) Income growth;
3.) Direct nutrition interventions;
4.) Investment in health, water and education.
Although the Philippines showed improvement and progress, the 2014 Global Nutrition Report of the International Food Policy Research Institute (Ifpri) provides that the status of its hunger incidence is still alarming and in red flag—“Serious.”
The report also implied that the Philippines would not be able to meet any of the six nutritional targets of the Global World Health Assembly. The targets are as follows:
1.) Reducing child stunting by 40 percent;
2.) Reducing anemia in women of reproductive age by 50 percent;
3.) Reducing low birth weight by 30 percent;
4.) Preventing an increase in child overweight;
5.) Increasing exclusive breastfeeding of infants up to at least 50 percent; and
6.) Reducing and maintaining child wasting to less than 5 percent.
In Metro Manila the hunger incidence prevalence is indeed alarming and covers more than 550,000 families, living in the street and under bridges.
Are there options?
Urban agriculture has been defined by the FAO as the practice of cultivating, processing and distributing food in, or around, a village, town or city. Urban farming is a particular portion of urban land use where food is grown primarily for sale. Urban farming is the growing, cultivating and distributing food within a city or town boundary to generate revenue. Revenue-generating urban agriculture has also been termed market gardening, commercial urban agriculture and entrepreneurial urban agriculture.
How can urban farming address the issues of hunger, malnutrition, etc., in urban areas? Let’s look at some ideas:
- Urban farms are often high profile that can have great potential for collaboration within the community by building partnerships with developers, local government units, faith-based organization the food service industry, schools, community organizations, and others, and—very important—with business leaders who see the need for CSR to assist the less privileged;
- A project will have to identify public free spaces, institutional land, vacant lots or underutilized sites;
- It will have to profile and identify beneficiaries, jointly with LGUs and the DSWD; the beneficiaries will have to be trained and continuously be supported by social workers; the areas to be converted to urban farming have to be protected; and some produce have to be shared for consumption among the urban poor who are planting/ harvesting and the rest sold for livelihood to business partners/consumers.
What can be planted anytime, all season: ampalaya, sitaw (hyacinth bean), cabbage, carrot, celery, cowpea, cucumber, eggplant, lettuce, leaf mustard, okra (lady’s fingers), kangkong (tropical spinach), patola (loofah), pechay, pole sitao (stringbean), abitsuela (snap bean), tomato, black pepper, gabi (taro), papaya and kamote (sweet potato.
Who wants to partner with us? Contact Schumacher@mca.ph