EDITORIAL - Food security

While families hard-hit by the enhanced community quarantine and extreme lockdowns worry about where their next meal will come from, farmers in the Cordilleras were recently forced to discard truckloads of their vegetable harvest because of their inability to sell the crops.

With people losing their livelihoods and their purchasing power much diminished, and with quarantine protocols curtailing shopping routines, consumption is down except for essential items. The problem is aggravated by impositions on the movement of all types of cargo by local government units and barangays above the guidelines set by the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Into the third week of the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine and similar measures in several areas in the Visayas and Mindanao, the repeated public reminders of the task force to ensure the “unhampered” movement of cargo has yet to trickle down. Several local government units continue to operate like independent republics, imposing harsh restrictions that are threatening not only the livelihoods of farmers and fisherfolk but also food security in the quarantine areas.

Supply chains are disrupted and families are going hungry in this challenging period. It’s appalling to see tons of rotting carrots being dumped by the truckload into a ravine because of low demand at the La Trinidad agricultural trading post in Benguet.

Authorities can improve coordination with the food-producing areas so that farmers can be assured of continued demand for their crops. Many local government units are distributing food to their needy constituents in the quarantine areas. With just a bit of coordination, the LGUs can buy vegetables, fruits and other crops from affected farmers so that nothing goes to waste.

While focusing on the public health crisis, the government must not lose sight of the need to ensure food security and protect the agriculture sector, one of the most vulnerable to the economic fallout from the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Even before COVID-19 hit the country, rice farmers were already reeling from the impact of rice tariffication. Hog raisers continue to grapple with African swine fever. Bird flu has been reported in a quail farm in Nueva Ecija.

Most people understand the objectives of the COVID-19 quarantine and are willing to cooperate with the measures to protect public health. In turn, the government must see to it that the most basic need of people for food security is also protected.