EU contributes to food security in the Philippines

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

The European Union has established a special fund for projects that contribute to food security worldwide. Agriterra, together with four farmers’ organisations in the Philippines, has delivered a project with this purpose. This proposal has been approved by the EU. With a fund of 1.4 million euro from the EU the four organisations will work on improving food production with the aim of making the food prices more stable in the Philippines.

In recent years food prices in the Philippines, as in many other countries, considerable fluctuate. Farmers are among the poorest sectors of society and are most vulnerable to price volatility. They do not benefit as producers if the prices are high because they are at the bottom of the production chain and they get a low price for their products anyhow. Only the multinationals, retailers and the intermediates benefit from the high food prices. Some reasons for these volatile food prices – like hurricanes and floods – cannot be controlled, but improving production (quality and quantity) and diversification of products can be used to cope with price volatility.

Four organisations in the Philippines, FFF, Kammpil, Natcco and Pakisama will exchange their knowledge and experience to help their members improving their products and increase diversification. These four farmer organisations, which did not work together before, are all partners of Agriterrra. Agriterra arranged  coordination between FFF, Kammpil, Natcco and Pakisama and they wrote the project proposal together with Agriterra.

The duration of the project is two years. The plan contains four critical areas of activities. First 208 groups of at least twenty farmers will be formed, mainly small scale farmers who are engaged in producing crucial food products in the Philippines like rice, corn, sugarcane and coconut. They will be grouped in so-called commodity clusters. Next step is that these farmer groups switch to an improved, sustainable production and product diversification so that they supply a variety of qualitatively good products. At the same time the four organisations defend the interests of their farmers and lobby for a strong position of the farmers within the chain. After thoroughly research of the sales possibilities and marketing activities, they will be better equipped  to enter the market and get a good price for their products.
 
Helping small-scale farmers of FFF, Kammpil, Natcco and Pakisama to increase productivity addresses both their food security concerns and also the interests of consumers in general.