Food security plans soon a must for LGUs

the rice crisis in the southern part of the country, the Department of Agriculture plans to require local government units to craft their own food security plans to ensure sufficient supply of basic commodities.

Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said the DA and the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) would work together for a localized food security planning program which would look into the needs and the capacity of every province to produce food.

“Every town and province of the country will be asked to prepare their local food security plans indicating how they could feed their constituents and what support they need from the national government,” Piñol said.

LGUs are given until the end of the month to submit their local food security plans which will be discussed in four clusters — Northern Luzon, Southern Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

Among the information to be required in each plan include total consumption of basic food commodities and the level of self-sufficiency for every commodity.

It will also cover areas for potential food production and the interventions needed from the national government such as irrigation, farm-to-market roads, machinery and equipment, storage and processing facilities.

“The DA needs these inputs because there is simply no way for us to determine which river or creek could be the source of water for the local agricultural areas, where would they need roads to transport food commodities and what machinery

and other support they need to increase their production,” Piñol said.

“The DA then will draft a national food security plan indicating which area has a surplus production of a food commodity and which area needs additional supplies,” he added.

The final output will be submitted to President Duterte for consideration.

“Hopefully, he will be able to prevail upon the government’s economic managers to take a second look at agriculture and food security and its impact on national stability and security,” Piñol said.

The department’s plan came after the crisis in Zamboanga City, Basilan, Sulu and TawiTawi (ZAMBAsulta) where prices of rice skyrocketed following the stoppage of smuggling operations.

“The rice crisis in ZAMBAsulta brought to surface the sad reality that almost all towns and provinces all over the country do not have a local food security plan, indicating the food needs of their people and how and where they could produce or where they could source the food,” Piñol said.