15-M kids in RP malnourished — Villar

More than 15 million Filipinos are malnourished because of lack of proper food, according to figures from the Congressional Oversight Committee on Food and Agricultural Modernization (COCAFAM).

Senate President Pro Tempore Manuel Villar Jr., chairman of the Senate committee on food and agriculture, said the country’s annual population growth which reached 2.36 percent has surpassed the 2.16 percent growth in agricultural production in the 1990s.

"There is a clear need to apply modern technological methods to increase our food production in order to feed our population," he said.

Villar said other Asian countries like Thailand and China, which have relatively strong farm sectors, are able to provide food to their population.

"We need to work together to bolster our agricultural sector through needed legislation as well as the implementation of various food programs," he said.

It is important for the country to increase food production to meet the needs of the population, Villar added.

On the other hand, Sen. Edgardo Angara, agriculture secretary under the Estrada administration, said it is embarrassing for the government to take part in the World Food Summit in Rome next month, with such a dismal report on malnourished children, an underfunded agriculture sector, and staggering statistics on rural poverty.

""The country promised to reduce the 13.16 million malnourished children to 10.4 million," he said. "What happened was the reverse."

Angara, chairman of the National Nutrition Council of the Philippines, said malnutrition is basically a rural phenomenon tied up to the country’s problem of massive rural poverty.

"Three out of four poor Filipinos are in the rural areas, which are also the areas hard hit by malnutrition," he said.

Rural poverty is a direct result of the underdevelopment of the agricultural sector, Angara added. –Aurea Calica