Voting with our fork

Or our spoon. Or whatever we use to eat, three times a day. To quote a good friend who is a biodynamic farmer, Nicolo Aberasturi, everyday we eat imported food – 70 percent of our rice, 70 percent of our pork, 70 percent of pig feed, 98 percent of milk and 100 percent of our flour for pandesal. And there is a food crisis coming. What can we do as simple consumers, a normal family, a struggling business?

• Get to know your public market. My nephew discovered going to one rather than supermarkets and he compared prices. He can buy a small bunch of vegetables, a few hundred grams of meat and some local fruits. He has not only saved money for his daily consumption, he has also helped a farmer. Farmers, specially the small ones, only reach the public markets, especially in the far-flung towns.

• Shift to rice, local rice. We Filipinos love rice and we could get picky about its quality. We can tell old rice from newly-milled rice, we can tell the variety if it is Dinorado or Sinandomeng. Now, add another differentiator, choose heirloom rice which our IP brothers and sisters now share with us. I remember my first ever experience with red rice was in Sagada in the ’70s. I could never forget the taste and to this day, I have grown accustomed to local origins like Ifugao, Kalinga and the rest of Cordillera’s rice terraces.

• Look for local beef or pork. Pork is in your bacon, your chicharron, your giniling. If you must eat pork, try local pastured pork on those rare occasions. Local grass-fed beef is also available, rather than imported Kitayama, Miyazaki or Wagyu.

• Chicken can be stewed. Local native chicken is best stewed, boiled in a soup or made into adobo. Sadly most chicken we find in stores and restaurants are imported, and that means they were fed also with a mishmash of antibiotics and chemicals and feeds rather than grub. If you have a backyard, raise your own layers. Then you will also get free eggs, everyday.

• Milk and other dairy. I have shifted to coconut oil spread and I know it’s healthier than butter. I have also avoided animal milk and if I must, it’s kesong puti from carabao’s milk, more often than not. We keep our artisans busy and we avoid further importation of dairy and contaminated milk.

The first step is really difficult. Imagine having to look for local rice, local beef and pork and native chicken? But you will do yourself another favor – you will eat less beef and help control methane gases in the air. You will eat less pork and avoid hypertension and high cholesterol. And chicken, you can lessen your consumption of “fast food” quarters (drumstick and thigh) – those are the cheapest cuts because they are dumped on us by First World countries (who promote eating only breasts or white meat as it is touted to be healthier than dark meat). This is why you only can choose drumsticks, thighs and wings, too and hardly any breasts when you visit a restaurant for fried chicken. The wings became a food trend also because it is a cheap disposable part of the whole chicken, tastes good because of high fat of the skin and can be used as appetizers or main course in many places.

So, how does a consumer also ensure food security? We can grow some, if not all, of our food.

This can be started as backyard “bahay kubo” vegetables which grow even in lowland temperatures and not the imported vegetables (including lettuce) that need temperate climes.

If you are not ready to be a backyard farmer, the next best thing is to find a farmer or a consolidator of farmers who can sell you a variety of local vegetables. There are many sites on Facebook and Instagram who can deliver to your doorstep. Among them are Session Groceries from Baguio, Kota Paradiso from Mabitac, Laguna, Bukid Mama of Indang, Cavite and Sweet Spring Farm of Alfonso, Cavite.

The war in Ukraine has caused imported products to cost even more, brought about by higher gas prices and transport costs. That is more reason to buy local goods and learn to be self-sufficient rather than dependent on imports.

There is no better time to buy local than now. The food crisis is coming and we must help farmers look for more sustainable ways of staying afloat. This can be with use of Open Pollinated Varieties (OPV) of seeds rather than hybrids. If we keep buying drought- and flood-resistant varieties, the more food secure we become.

And lastly, try to buy organic whenever you can. How do you know if it is organic? Take a break and visit a nearby farm or producer. Do they use or spray chemicals? One farm our colleagues visited said they were organic, but the team found synthetic fertilizers stacked in their warehouse. These they say came from government, given away free to farmers. So do we start with ourselves while asking government to also toe the line? Government must be one with us in fighting hunger NOT through imports but in teaching farmers how to be self-sufficient. It starts with seeds and the fertilizers given to farmers. We must let farmers become self-sufficient whilst converting to organic and regenerative agriculture.

If we the consumers demand organically-grown products, farmers will follow the money and start converting to healthier ways to produce our food. So it starts with us. It starts with an activity we do three times a day – eating. So if you want to vote, vote with your fork. What you eat is what the farmers will continue to grow. Let’s go for organic and healthier produce, made locally and sustaining the business of our Filipino farmers.

Vote three times a day. Use your power to change the system. That will give us food security and a healthier society.