Thursday, October 16, 2008 Editorial: World Food Day and productivity
TODAY is World Food Day, a day commemorated to keep track of how the war against hunger is being won, or lost.
Released just this month is the International Food Policy Research Institute and Welt Hunger Hilfe's Global Hunger Index report, "The Challenge of Hunger 2008", which underlines the slow pace of development in achieving food security.
In terms of global hunger index severity, Philippines is classified as a low middle income country whose severity is "serious", sharing status with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Cameroon, Republic of Cong, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Lesotho, Namibia, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, and Swaziland.
The report presents a lot to ponder on, including the realization that no amount of optimistic projections and declarations can ever erase the fact that hunger stalks our poor people, and our poor people are growing, fast, both in age and number producing undernourished infants and children today who will be tomorrow's unproductive citizens.
In the report, it highlighted an IFPRI-led study in Guatemala. The long-term study involved boys who were given supplements from infancy to childhood and monitored into adulthood.
Those who received high-energy, high-protein supplement in the first two years of their life "earned on average 46 percent higher wages as adults". Those who received the supplement in the first three years earned around 37 percent higher wages compared to boys who did not receive the nutrition supplement.
"After age three, the nutritional supplement had no effect on hourly wages, implying young children have specific nutritional needs that must be met at specific times," the report said.
Of concern, however, is the jacking up of food prices, and the admission of just about every government and policy-making agency that the food prices will remain high.
"Even though the GHI has been falling slowly since 1990, at least 800 million people were food insecure before the food price crisis hit. In other words, 800 million people could not afford an adequate diet even in the context of declining food prices. Some poor people in developing countries spend as much as 70 percent of their incomes on food. People who were already food insecure have little or no scope for achieving nutritious diets in the face of rising food prices," the report said.
Policy-makers and program implementers must not be blinded by the pollyannas of government who promise better opportunities for the rural poor because of the higher prices of agricultural products. The hundreds of thousands of farmers and fisherfolk that we should worry about, will never know the so-called trickle-down effect of high buying rates of agricultural products because they are net buyers of food. They do not own the land they till, they do not produce enough for their families to feed on, they even have to sell the single kilo of fish the father catches because it will buy them noodles that has a longer shelf life and for as long as its watered down, can feed more. These are the same hundreds of thousands of people who make do with the cheapest food, with no concern about nutrition and nutrients.
"Recent research by IFPRI, Cornell University, and other collaborators shows that nutritional deficits in young children often could not be made up later," the report said.
Indeed, as we celebrate World Food Day today, let us look beyond the availability of the needed food in our stores and warehouses. Rather, let us look at the food on the table of the poorest in our communities, because this is what will matter most in the future because in the decade ahead, the infants and children we starve today will be the ones who will be peopling the manpower pool to sustain our economic activities. The time to act is now because nutritional deficits in the young today cannot be made up later.
