El Niño threat to hunger program

As the areas affected by the current drought brought about by this severe bout of El Niño widens, we can expect the current hunger rate – which is already at a new record-high of 24 percent representing 4.4 million households – to deepen further this year.

Especially at risk is the government’s overall accelerated hunger mitigation program (AHMP), a scaled up version of an earlier more simplistic edition launched at the beginning of the decade.

Like many of government’s targets, reducing hunger incidence by half will likely be another moving goal after the environment, particularly the current early and prolonged dry spell, once again creates added challenges in meeting the program’s goals.

Seeking solutions

The AHMP could be considered as one of government’s flagship programs when it was launched in 2006-2007 after attempts were made to weave it into a cohesive platform linking various separate but existing and relevant programs of different government agencies.

It objectives, though, remain the same: to seek and provide solutions to the gut issues of hunger and malnutrition from both the supply and demand sides of the economic system.

Being an umbrella program, the AHM P has five components or major strategies under which the programs of the different agencies have been placed, namely 1) increasing food production, 2) logistical efficiency and food delivery, 3) putting more money in people’s pockets, 4) promotion of good nutrition, and 5) managing the population.

Shifting resources

With El Niño, agricultural productivity and food delivery will have to be given the lion’s share of state resources if the country is to avert massive hunger problems especially in the food producing regions.

Farmers and their families who rely on the land’s harvest for their staple food supply in the succeeding months until the next harvest season will find that they will have to either dig in their savings, or if they have none (which is usually the case), will have to rely on loans to survive the drought.

Even the localities within “AHMP Priority Areas,” which constitute the poorest provinces considered food-poor and provinces where there are existing anti-hunger programs, will have to be reconsidered given the increasing areas affected by El Niño.

Continuing infrastructure projects

But even as extreme measures are considered, government should continue with the programs that have been agreed on under the accelerated hunger mitigation program.

This includes, for example, the agriculture department’s projects on productivity and the infrastructure projects such as the construction of farm-to-market roads of the Department of Public Works and Highways or the Department of Agrarian Reform.

This is also true for productivity programs under the AHMP such as livestock and crop production, marine regeneration (mangrove and coastal fishery development), and provision of irrigation facilities that contribute to the goal of making food available and affordable to consumers.

Reaping benefits from completed projects

Recently completed projects by the National Irrigation Authority have showed how valuable these could be to improving the flow of precious water particularly in the AHMP priority areas, even in times when there is the El Niño.

One such project is the Lower Agusan Development Project in Agusan del Norte. The project constructed two pumping stations, project office facilities, irrigation and drainage canals, and on-farm facilities on the Biy-Os and Aupagan areas to irrigate about 8,000 hectares of farm land. The project now benefits more than 14,000 farmers in Butuan City and Buenavista.

Agusan del Norte is a priority province under the AHMP. According to NIA, as of end-August 2009, about 55,000 farmer-beneficiaries have already benefited from the restoration and rehabilitation of irrigation facilities.

The NIA has yet to finish its targets in terms of rehabilitating and repairing other irrigation systems and installing new ones in selected AHMP priority provinces up to the end of the year. This will benefit more than 300,000 hectares of lands, and thus must be fully supported in spite of the drought crisis.

Drought adaptation

In view of the country’s vulnerability to future droughts, adaptation mechanisms such as the widespread roll-out of the localized or drip irrigation technology where water is applied by wetting only a part of the soil in the field through emitter.

This is a highly efficient system as water is conveyed through a pipe system and applied directly to each plant such that only the soil near each plant is wet. This also facilitates “fertigation” and thus, could increase yield by 20 to 70 percent. Furthermore, drip irrigation is suitable in steep and undulating slopes and sandy soils.

Other drought mitigation strategies include increasing the establishment of rainwater harvesting structures under the responsibility of the Bureau of Soils and Water Management, as well as monitoring and providing for shallow tube wells and fingerling dispersal to vulnerable areas with high impact to inland aquaculture through the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.

Multi-sector help

Lastly, private as well as the non-government aid sectors must put in their resources to helping government meet the challenge that El Niño has brought on.

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, for example, as a member of the AHMP should intensify its feeding programs and its Gulayan sa Parokya.

The current crisis is turning out to be far worse than the typhoons that hit Metro Manila and expansive portions of north Luzon last year. Now, more than ever, more so since our political system is only half-working as the election campaign peaks, each Filipino’s contribution is important to hurdling this latest challenge.

Let us all help to avert more hunger.

Should you wish to share any insights, write me at Link Edge, 25^th Floor, 139 Corporate Center, Valero Street, Salcedo Village, 1227 Makati City. Or e-mail me at [email protected]. For a compilation of previous articles, visit www.BizlinksPhilippines.net.