Dame Barbara Stocking, chief executive officer of Oxfam Great Britain who was in the country during the launch of its report “Growing a Better Future” and its “GROW” campaign at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani on Friday said policies, programs and government spending should support small farmers and fishers more to help arrest a food crisis scenario in the Philippines.
Sen. Francis Pangilinan, chairman of the committee on agriculture and fisheries and Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala were among the guest of honor during the launch attended by Oxfam’s network of partner-nongovernmental organizations and people’s organizations.
During a forum highlighting the event, Alcala remains confident that the target of achieving rice self-sufficiency by 2013 is achievable.
He said Department of Agriculture (DA) has set in motion its Agrikulturang Pinoy program, which aims to promote responsible production and consumption among Filipinos, to ease the pressure on rice, by encouraging food producers, as well as consumers to go for brown rice and other alternative to the staple food, such as white corn, sweet potato and cassava to promote food diversification.
The country’s food czar said women will play a key role under the DA’s AgriPinoy program as he revealed plans to tap them to introduce such alternative to white rice to their family, particularly among those living in Metro Manila.
In fishing communities, he said DA will continue to provide support to women to boost food processing.
GROW promotes growing, sharing and living better in the face of a world food crisis that threatens to send billions of people to a state of extreme poverty and hunger. It calls for a radically new approach to the way we do agriculture, share and manage food, and other natural resources.
The report which will also be launched in 45 different countries blames the failing food system and environmental crises as the reason decades of progress against hunger have been reversed.
Because of the flawed food system, billions will be driven into hunger by 2030, the report warned.
It identifies the symptoms of the unstable food system, including the growing hunger, poor yields, dwindling resources need for food production, such as land and water, and the rising food prices. The report warns that a new age of crisis is at hand, where earth’s natural resources and severe climate change impacts will cause hunger and poverty to worsen all over the world.
“Almost a billion people go to bed hungry every night because the global food system has failed. But governments have the power to kick-start the transformation to a fairer, more sustainable system,” Stocking said.
Prices of staple foods such as maize will double in the next 20 years, primarily because of climate change, and the world’s poorest people who spend up to 80 percent of their income on food will be the hardest hit, the report said.
The demand for food aid will double in the next 10 years. By 2050, the world's food demand will rise 70 percent, while its capacity to produce food declines.
