Agriculture insensitivity causes nutrition convulsions

BAIS CITY, Negros Oriental, Philippines -- It was three o'clock in the morning when father and son sipped coffee made from toasted rice as they broke the steamed cassava cake they called "balanghoy." The flicker of flames from a gasera barely made out their faces. Hostile terrains made it difficult to install power lines. As the five-year old thin boy finished first, he asked leave so he could prepare the rice seedlings. Putting on a mantle on his head, he slipped on an old shirt that was his father's. "I'll wait for you at the ricefield, Tay." He ought to have been in school but his father needed help. His thin legs dug through the miry field as he bent his back burrowing the seedlings into the fresh, muddy earth.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon when a father sipped brewed coffee and his son hot chocolate at a cafe in a highly urbanized community. The five-year old boy, who was obese for his age, had ordered chicken with rice and a mound of potato fries saying he was hungry. As he forked on his food, and some he took with his fingers, crumbs of rice fell on the table and some on the floor. "Are you done, Son?" the father asked, seeing that his son hardly finished the rice serving. "I'm done, Dad," said the son licking on the gravy with his fingers, "just have the waiter wrap this leftover rice so I can give it to the dogs."

Is what we are planting sensitive to what we are eating? Is our agricultural production sensitive to put food always in the home? As insensitive as a five-year-old obese boy who wastes rice to drop on the floor or throws leftover rice to the dogs while a five year old boy in the barrio breaks his back to plant rice to feed a hungry nation, this country could be hanging on a limb with disparities between nutrition and agriculture on the issue of FAITH putting food always in the home.

In rare deliberations, some 20 government nutritionists, nurses, doctors and health practitioners engaged in lively but piercing discussions raising the concern that the agriculture blueprint of the country may not match with the nutrition blueprint of the Filipino diet. In the second regional management conference that the National Nutrition Council 7 held in Bais City on May 30 to June 1, nutrition action officers said that there continues to be a prevalence of poor nutritional levels based on the age for weight and height for weight parameters. They pointed at a disparity that the agriculture industry may not be producing enough food of what is nutritionally ideal. They said that while nutrition action officers can promote the food pyramid, getting this on the dining table of the average Filipino home maybe cumbered when the supply side of nutrition, which is agriculture, is insensitive to the Filipino diet.

Before the reaping

Hostile terrains in priority and governance may have come between nutrition and agriculture all this time. It may have come belated before each agency realized that nutrition-sensitive agriculture is the impetus for lactating mothers to have the proper diet and food that gives nourishment foundation in milk production. It may have been overlooked by both agencies that nutrition-sensitive agriculture is critical in promoting micro-nutrient based diets and healthy food lifestyles when fruits and vegetables are readily available, accessible and cheap.

In precipitating and moving for nutrition-sensitive agriculture, this year's Nutrition Month theme is "Pagkain ng gulay ugaliin, araw-araw itong ihain" on the rationale that the best way to have nutrition-based diet is to produce agricultural harvests that are sensitive and responsive to nutrition-based menu. Nutrition action officers in the region observed that on economies of scale, more definitive levels of collaboration may yet be needed between the nutrition council and the agriculture department.

While the agriculture department can claim to have increased annual production output and more efficient logistics food chain, such harvests do not equate to being nutrition-sensitive. In other words, it is one thing to have increased agriculture output and another to have nutrition-sensitive production. One factor that was blamed for the disparity is that agriculture in this country is generally export-based. Agricultural lands are traditionally dedicated in producing crops for export and not necessarily for the consumption of the average Filipino family. There are not so much lands dedicated to vegetable and fruit production. And if there are, the best pick, the best mangoes, the best carrots, the best potatoes, the best lettuces are either exported or sold to big hotels and restaurants while the "crumbs" and rejects are sold at local flea markets or grocery stores. This tends to make agriculture un-FAITHful that is fruits and vegetables become expensive making Food-Always-In-The-Home prohibitive for dining tables of marginalized families. While nutrition is no respecter of social status, lopsided agriculture can discriminate when nutritionally-ideal food like fruits and vegetables are expensive.

Another is, agricultural lands these days are either converted into subdivisions and residential communities while others turn into war zones displacing thousands of farmlands and farmers. Until there is a principled resolve to armed hostilities and until there are definitive reforms and enforcement to land use, hunger and malnutrition continues to be real. There continues to be prevalence of malnutrition even in agriculture-based economies either because there are not enough lands for agriculture and agricultural lands are planted to export commodities hence neglecting and leaving out basic nutrition-based produce.

To encourage home-based planting of vegetables and fruits, the National Nutrition Council is launching its annual Nutrition Month next month with simultaneous planting of vegetables in backyard gardens, school gardens and other areas where planting in small scale is possible. There is just one clincher, households must cook or eat of the harvests they produce. Of what use is a vegetable garden, only to dine in restaurants and fastfood chains. The whole idea of backyard gardening is to encourage home cooking.

It was five o'clock in the afternoon when a five-year-old boy stretched his back that was broken with a whole day of planting. It was five o'clock in the morning when parents woke up to the convulsions of their five-year old obese boy. A country whose agriculture is insensitive to nutrition may end up with spasms in its economy and convulsions in governance. If we have not sown the seeds of nutrition-sensitive agriculture yet, we may be reaping undesired harvests. (FREEMAN)