by: Jennifer de Belen, Deanie Lyn Ocampo, and Sheena Pena

Photo courtesy of: Bukluran Market

The government imposition of community quarantine due to the Covid-19 pandemic has not only limited the mobility of people but also the movement of goods, especially food. Given the archipelagic nature of our country and our first experience of this kind of emergency, our agricultural-food system is definitely strained, not to mention that it has been confronting challenges even before the pandemic.

How did government, civil society organizations, and farmers plow through these past months to make food available and accessible to us?

FAO Philippines

Alberto Aduna of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Philippines explained that the government implemented response measures to maintain agricultural supply chains and strengthen markets for local producers while promoting decent work.

Among the efforts are food relief initiatives and issuance of guidelines for health and safety of farmers, fisher folk and frontliners in the food chain. FAO responded with a rapid remote assessment, emergency cash transfers, and technical support to DA to improve efficiency of service delivery.

In the “new normal”, Mr. Aduna shared that food supply chains will likely need to have fewer links in them than these currently have. There is need to re-orient and transform the food system to be more resilient and sustainable. The FAO is actively working on that and to accelerate the progress towards Sustainable Development Goals 1 (No Poverty) and 2 (Zero Hunger), but also to assure that all trade-offs on nature are minimized.

Mr. Aduna encouraged participants to remember that people who produce our food and those that bring food to the market are our food heroes during this pandemic. Let us buy food from local sources to support their livelihoods. We can also share excess food or support community groups provide free food to vulnerable people.

Vegies 4 Good

Atty. Aison Garcia of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) presented Veggies 4 Good as one of the OVP’s initiatives to improve food security in poor communities and to sustain income of food producers like Aling Dorina of Antipolo and the Dumagats (indigenous peoples) in Luzon.

This provided employment to 10 mothers, 7 fathers, 3 out-of-school youth and affordable, nutritious food to communities. It even enabled the Dumagats to give relief assistance of rice, salt, oil, and flour to their neighbors.

Because of the positive feedback, the OVP decided to expand the initiative through social media to reach more communities, to add value to the foods through food processing, and to develop and market “anti-Covid” packs.

Bukluran Market

Bukluran ng mga Katutubo para sa Pangangalaga ng Kalikasan is a national network of indigenous people’s (IPs) organizations combining indigenous knowledge and science technology to defend their sacred territories against threats to rights and nature. Timothy Salomon described the Bukluran Market as their NGO’s response when links between food supply and demand were cut during the lockdown. As a result of decreased sales plummeted prices of their produce, farmers from the IP organizations had to take loans. Some were even tempted to sell land, even if selling is prohibited by law. Bukluran realized that addressing poverty is connected to protecting ancestral lands.

Bukluran shifted to produce marketing after discovering that the Mangyans had a surplus supply of avocados. In partnership with cooperatives and other organizations, they were able to sell 1,400 kilograms in two weeks. All profits from the Market is being used to purchase distance learning requirements of 200 IP scholars.

Its next steps are to engage more live markets, to expand suppliers and products, to converse with funders, and to establish local social protection for IPs, among many others.

PAKISAMA and Farmers

Rene Cerilla of the Pambansang Kilusan ng Samahang Magsasaka (PAKISAMA shared that during the lockdown, some farmers were forced to harvest and mill their own rice produce for food. For those who have other produce, they were forced to eat one product per day, e.g. banana or cassava for one full day. Other challenges they faced were: access to food and markets; marketing and hauling of farm produce; hunger experienced by landless farmers; decreased income for copra farmers.

The lockdown, however, allowed more bonding within families and communities. In a spirit of bayanihan, farmers organized to work together, thus no money/financial resources were spent for harvesting. People also bartered food with other food products.

Among his recommendations are for us to buy local, to shift from junk food to nutritious ones, and to support the passage of agrarian reform and National Land Use Act. Lessening the profit margin of middlemen or buying directly by bulk from farmers and fishers will be helpful.

Rebooting Agriculture

USec. Rodolfo Vicerra (Department of Agriculture) shared that its initiatives and responses during the pandemic were to minimize disruption of food supply and to guard prices of basic food commodities in the market.

Key programs of the DA under Bayanihan Act 2 are: urban agriculture, support to MSMEs in the short-term, and establishing agro-industrial business corridors and farm and fisheries clustering and consolidation in the medium-term.

He mentioned research findings (pre-Covid) that DA’s programs only reach only 1 million out of 10-11 million Filipino farmers and fishers. Given that data, he presented DA’s framework for socio-economic recovery and resiliency – Survive, Reboot, and Grow. The main objectives of the framework are food production and food availability, accessibility, affordability, price stability, sustainability and food safety. He also puts emphasis on modernization and systems for production and consolidation.

This article comes from the e-Talk session organized by the Philippine Partnership for the Development of Human Resources in Rural Areas (PhilDHRRA) on September 23, 2020 for the CODE-NGO Social Development Week 2020. The theme of the week is “Covid-19 Road to Recovery: Solutions from the Communities”. Watch the full video of the session here.