‘Govt must conduct food demand survey in 2020’

The government must conduct a rice consumption survey next year to determine if there are changes in Filipinos’ demand for the staple, according to a former administrator of the National Food Authority (NFA).

Former NFA Administrator Gregorio Tan Jr. said the conduct of the survey in 2020 is “most urgent” given the implementation of Republic Act (RA) 11203, or the rice trade liberalization law this year.

Tan also said the conduct of a food consumption survey every three years to find out changes in consumption patterns will also help the country’s policy-makers.

“The survey should be done every three years, if possible. It [should] cover everything, not only the important commodities, such as rice, corn, sugar and some meat products. As population increases, per-capita [food] consumption could also grow,” he told the BusinessMirror in a recent interview.

“The other reason for conducting the survey next year is that [it] is already one year after the implementation of [RA 11203]. The [change in consumption patterns] would reflect the impact of price movements since the industry was liberalized,” he added.

The last food survey demand was undertaken by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) in 20152016. The results of the survey were released in early 2017.

Tan said statistics on food demand, particularly for rice, is vital for policy-making today as the industry is now deregulated. The data will allow policy-makers to see how supply and demand plays out in a liberalized rice market.

Also, the former NFA chief said the use of the supply utilization accounts, or the disappearance method, to determine food demand is inaccurate since it involves the use of formula that may already be outdated.

In October, the Department of Agriculture (DA) created a technical working group (TWG) that would formulate a strategy to achieve the country’s food and nutrition security.

The DA issued Special Order (SO) 847 Series of 2019, dated October 1, that formed the TWG. Its task is to formulate the food production strategy (FPS) as part of the department’s outputs in its National Food Consumption Quantification Study (NFCQS).

According to the DA, the NFCQS “aims to determine and analyze the major food consumption patterns of Filipinos, and the country’s production of major commodities to quantify the demand of a growing population.”

The NFCQS is being led by the DA in partnership with the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (UN-FAO), PSA, Department of Science and Technology-Food and Nutrition Research Institute, National Nutrition Council and the Philippine Statistical Research and Training Institute.

Last year, the BusinessMirror published a Broader Look story that discussed the problems hounding the government in terms of getting a clear picture of the country’s rice consumption data or demand (See “Snapshot of riceconsumption data remains grainy as Pinoys grapple with supply, prices,” BusinessMirror, August 30, 2018).