City’s malnutrition rate drops to 2.8%

DUMAGUETE CITY, Philippines — The malnutrition rate in this city had, over the last two years, dropped from 4.1 percent in 2011 to only 2.8 percent in the first quarter of this year, according to city nutrition officer Lourdes Taburaza the other day.

Taburaza, speaking during the culmination rites of the city’s observance of the Nutrition Month, said there were at least 700 malnourished children in 2011 and this number went down to 468 last year and 460 in the first four months of this year.

She attributed the achievement to the full cooperation of the City Nutrition Council and city officials, headed by Mayor Manuel Sagarbarria.

The city government had allocated funds for the year-round supplemental feeding and fresh milk feeding program for pre-schoolers and pupils in public schools, and for the parents in planting vegetables in their backyards.

Sagarbarria said hunger will not hit the city due to the abundance of food and vegetables, except for rice production. He said efforts to promote organic farming here has paid off, with farmers given free Microbial Treated Supplement (MTS) fertilizers, which resulted in increased production.

Sagarbarria has also issued a directive to the city agriculturist office already start the propagation of wheat and barley in all the barangays of Dumaguete, citing the nutritional and health benefits of the plant, seedlings of which are readily available in the markets.— (FREEMAN)