October 16 is World Food Day but for many Filipino families, hunger has never been so common.
 
According to the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI), the usual daily diet for most Filipino households consists of rice, fish and vegetables. Rice accounts for around a third of the total diet; fish accounts for nearly 12.5 percent, while meat and poultry account only for around six percent. Vegetables and fruits together account for around 20 percent and the remaining portions are usually milk or milk products, root crops, sugars, fats and oils and beans, nuts and seeds.
 
In 2003, FNRI statistics showed that anemia, or lack of iron, afflicts around 66 percent of infants from zero to six months old and 29 percent of children from one to five years old. For those who are able to afford regular meals daily, another problem is "hidden hunger" or micro-nutrient deficiency. The prevalence of hidden hunger is basically due to the lack of nutrition in a person's diet. This means that while Filipinos might still have something on their tables, this doesn't necessarily mean that these foods contain the proper nutrients needed to develop healthy minds and bodies.
 
Nowadays, many poor Filipino families, especially in urban areas, subsist on instant noodles, grilled chicken innards such as isaw (intestine) and balun-balunan (gizzard), fish balls and other street foods, which are mostly grilled or fried. Also common in urban areas are meals consisting of plain rice with a dash of salt, or in rural areas, camote (sweet potato). These correlate well with surveys showing that around 2/3 of Filipino households are consuming less on food.
 
This situation is aggravated by our inability to produce our own food as a country. Although agriculture is still the cornerstone of the Philippine economy (the sector employs 40 percent of the active population), the industry remains largely backward and underdeveloped. Most farmers still use only simple tools and draft animals such as carabaos. Most farms are very small, averaging only around 2.1 hectares per family.
 
Landlessness is still a major problem: seven out of ten farmers do not own the lands they till. They are bound by exploitative feudal and semi-feudal relations as tenants, farm workers or lease-holders. A few families control vast tracts of land. 60 percent of agricultural lands are in the hands of 13 percent of all landowners; the biggest landlords own more than 20 percent of all agricultural land. Farmers are generally told not to hope for government assistance but to face foreign competition by themselves and pursue local rice production in the context of import liberalization.
 
Foreign firms have reaped large profits from their control and sale of seeds, agrochemicals and even the construction of overpriced irrigation systems to our farmers. Costs of rice production have thus soared beyond the reach of more and more owner-cultivators, forcing them deeper into bankruptcy and debt peonage. Nine out of 13 big pesticide companies in the Philippines are foreign-owned, controlling 85 percent of the market. Companies like Nestlé, Dole and Del Monte also dominate the processing and trade of food and agricultural products, with some also engaging in agricultural production and ownership or control of vast tracts of land.
 
The degree of mechanization in agriculture is limited and is concentrated on estates for export crops. In 2001, for instance, only some 11,500 tractors and 700 powered harvester-threshers were available for over 13 million hectares of agricultural land. As of 2002, only 30 percent of the country's total farm area is irrigated. As our country lacks basic industries, we have to import most farm inputs, tools and machines as well.
 
Since our years under colonization, Philippine agriculture has been export-oriented. This is one of weaknesses because we end up exporting agricultural products to foreign shores instead of producing food for our own domestic consumption. From 1995 to 1999, the country exported 8.25 million tonnes of banana, pineapple and mango, but had to import 4.74 million tonnes of rice and 1.18 million tonnes of corn just to meet the barest of domestic necessities.
 
In the first five years after the World Trade Organization Agreement on Agriculture came into effect in 1995, the Philippines incurred a total agricultural trade deficit of $3.5 billion, compared to a $1.69 billion surplus in the previous period. This made us a food importer from a food exporter in less than a decade.
 
Our continued dependence on imported food highlights the food insecurity our country faces. The continuing rice crisis and the possible impacts of climate changes could worsen our inability to feed our people. Coupled with the long running thrust towards production for export and increasing monopoly control by foreign firms and landlords puts our food security in danger.