Legarda urged the government for food self-sufficiency to mitigate hunger

By Jason de Asis

SENATE OFFICE, Manila, January 13, 2011-To help mitigate hunger of the citizenry, Senator Loren Legarda urged the government to establish programs that would boost the citizens’ self-sufficiency in food supplies following the release of the Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey results on the rate of hunger in the country.

SWS recorded that 18.1% of Filipinos or about 3.4 million families experienced hunger in the past three months last November 27 to 30, 2010.

The Senator said that food self-sufficiency would help further alleviate hunger and poverty for the long-term while the government said that it expects hunger incidence to reduce in the next months with the implementation of the conditional cash transfer program.

“The principle we have to use here is that which a popular proverb tells us: give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime, Legarda said, adding that the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program help the people but there is a need to teach them how to maximize their use of money.

She also urged the local government officials down from the barangays, to the municipalities and up to the provinces to conduct food production campaigns to boost food self-sufficiency, citing to use their vacant spaces in the communities and in their backyard where they can plant vegetables, fruits and others, and even in the public schools to address malnutrition among the school children.

“Food sufficiency is needed to improve our standards of living and it would also help the government to achieve the Millenium Development Goals program to eradicate the extreme poverty and hunger in the country,” she concluded. (Jason de Asis)