EXPERT’S CORNER
WHAT IS WRONG with the Philippine food system? DR. FERMIN D. ADRIANO DA Undersecretary for Policy, Planning, and Research
The Scientific Group of the UN Food Systems Summit 2021 defines "food systems" as the whole range of activities that "include the related resources, the inputs, production, transport, processing and manufacturing industries, retailing, and consumption of food as well as its impacts on environment, health and society." The definition goes beyond the traditional "farm to fork" (production to consumption) concept but extends to cover nutrition, sustainability of food production (environment including climate change and the provision of sustainable livelihood to food producers) and the governance (institutions) of the food systems.
devoted to analyzing the Philippine agricultural sector's performance.
A recent publication of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), based in Paris, France, assessed how 54 developed and developing economies in the world responded to the challenges facing the food systems, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic year of 2020. Its chapter 22 was specifically
Two, consumers and taxpayers actually provided substantial support to the agricultural sector across developed and emerging economies through market price support. Instruments used to achieve this were actual price subsidy and the imposition of high tariffs on agricultural and food imports.
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PHILRICE MAGAZINE | JUL-SEP 2021
The 605-page publication titled, "Addressing the challenges facing the food systems," released this year highlighted three conclusions. One is that, as expected, agricultural policy changes in 2020 were dominated by the responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly on how to ensure that the food supply chains were functioning in ensuring a steady flow of food to the urban centers where the bulk of the population is concentrated.
And three, it concluded that overall, the current support policies are not serving the wider needs of the food systems because the bulk of the assistance should have been devoted to research and development (R&D) that will dramatically raise productivity and minimize losses, biosecurity to ensure protection of human, animal and plant health, and infrastructure to lower transport costs and minimize postharvest losses. The report adds that such a shift in policy and support will be able to address the triple challenges facing the food systems, which are: (a) delivery of food security and nutrition for the growing population (b) provision of adequate income and livelihood to millions of production and processing workers, and (c) contribution to achieving sustainable development (reduction of greenhouse gas emission, and climate change adaptation and mitigation).
