Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Malnutrition may aggravate due to rice crisis
MANILA -- Senator Loren Legarda warned that the acute problem of malnutrition in the Philippines will surely be aggravated by the skyrocketing prices and tight supply of rice and other cereals in the market.
In drawing the conclusion, Legarda noted that as per the 2nd Philippines Progress Report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), the proportion of Filipino households with per capita intake below 100 percent of dietary energy requirement was already very high at 56.9 percent.
She also pointed out that 27.6 percent of preschool children were found to be underweight, with 11 out of 17 regions recording malnutrition prevalence rates higher than the average in the report.
"What these figures tell us is that cutting down on dietary intake, especially rice, is not an option for us Filipinos since over half of our population is already undernourished and nearly 28 percent of our preschool children underweight," said Legarda.
The senator made the remark in reaction to suggestions made by government officials for Filipinos to cut down rice consumption in the face of the looming rice shortage.
"As it is, the high prices of rice and other cereals in the market today are surely forcing many households to reduce consumption. But the first to suffer from this move would be our children and the elderly," she said.
She stressed that undernourished children suffer from stunted physical, emotional and mental growth, with those already going to school having difficulties in their studies.
The elderly, on the other hand, need the right amount of sustenance to combat degenerative diseases and to comfortably live the remaining years of their lives.
Legarda said the 57-day rice buffer does not give comfort to Filipinos who consider it as their staple food. She also noted with concern reports that the prices of corn has also tripled of late, while that of flour used to make bread has also gone up.
According to the MDG report, 13.8 percent of Filipinos were living below the subsistence food threshold and were considered "food poor." The subsistence level was estimated at P8,134 per capita per year or P3,389 per month for a family of five.
Incentives
Legarda, as chairperson of the Senate committee on economic affairs, said the government should offer more incentives to rural communities, especially farmers, in order to encourage them to produce more food.
During a recent meeting with Legarda in Iloilo City, agricultural producers and farmers' representatives said farmers should be given more support by government, especially in infrastructures, such as irrigation, post-harvest and marketing facilities in order to enable them to produce more food crops.
Representatives of the Panay Federation of Sugarcane Farmers, Inc. (PanayFed) told the senator that while about four million hectares of land have already been distributed to farmers under the Agrarian Reform Law, the government has been unable to follow through with other support services such as irrigation and technical advice, thus hampering the expected increase in productivity arising from land ownership.
They said instead of distributing more lands to farmers, the government should follow up on the land distribution by providing farmers with additional support to increase their agricultural production and get better prices for their crops through better marketing strategies. (Sunnex) |
