Food imports not the answer

President Aquino completes in 2014 his fourth year in office. The adjustment period is long over; it’s time for him to own up to his administration’s faulty policies on food security.

The Aquino administration’s Food Staples Self-Sufficiency Roadmap (FSSR) 2011-2016 laid down programs that supposedly would ensure food security for the country. Because of the administration’s neoliberal policies, this has miserably failed—preventing us from achieving the four conditions of food security (availability, accessibility, distribution and stability)—to the detriment of the agricultural sector.

On availability, government always resorts to importation to augment low food supply. This year, 1.2 million metric tons of rice will be imported, based on the forecast of the Food and Agriculture Organization.

And accessibility to available food is being hampered by high prices and the low wages of average workers. The price of garlic, a staple ingredient in Filipino cooking, increased dramatically, reaching P300-P350 per kilo last June, despite the fact that 90 percent of the supply in the market is imported. Meanwhile, rice prices are continually increasing even as huge volumes of supply are imported or smuggled. The prices of milk, sugar, pork and poultry also went up. It’s no wonder that in the first quarter of 2014, 59.3 percent of Filipinos had difficulty providing their households with enough food (Ibon survey).

With seven out of every 10 peasants landless, a stable supply of food has not been achieved. Without enough land, they cannot produce food even just for household consumption. In the Philippines, most farmers till less than a hectare, and two-thirds or three-fourths of their harvests go to the landlord. Not only that, they shoulder the total cost of production. Lack of support from the government makes it difficult for them to become more productive.

Sadly, the distribution of food even within a household is also uneven. Mothers are forced to sacrifice their share so that their children can eat more. The quality and nutritiousness of food are lacking, especially among the poor. Needy families are forced to consume packed noodles with copious amount of water to fill their empty stomachs; or to flavor their rice with fish or soy sauce to make it more palatable.

In a subsistence economy like the Philippines’, food security means self-reliance through local production, not importation. It entails farmers’ control of the land where they grow food, and the protection of their livelihood. Absent these goals, President Aquino’s FSSR is only a decoy to disguise the real policy thrust of the government, which is based on the neoliberal framework of agricultural trade and investment.

Clearly, the importation of agricultural products does not bring down prices. It puts traders in control of supply and prices and makes the market vulnerable to price manipulation. This worsens the state of food insecurity, hunger and malnutrition that have long bedeviled the Filipino people.

—ESTRELLA CATARATA,

executive director,

Philippine Network of Food Security Programmes,  [email protected]