{"id":260899,"date":"2020-07-08T06:31:09","date_gmt":"2020-07-08T10:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=260899"},"modified":"2020-07-08T06:31:09","modified_gmt":"2020-07-08T10:31:09","slug":"policy-shifts-in-food-systems-needed-in-new-normal-da-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/07\/08\/policy-shifts-in-food-systems-needed-in-new-normal-da-chief\/","title":{"rendered":"Policy shifts in food systems needed in new normal: DA chief"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Willilam<\/a>
Dar said policy shifts in the country\u2019s food system are required in the new normal to support the agricultural sector\u2019s role in supplying the food requirements of the population. (File Photo<\/a>:
Department of Agriculture – Philippines\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Agriculture Secretary William Dar on Wednesday underscored the need to introduce policy shifts in governing food systems to achieve the \u201coverarching goal\u201d of ensuring food security in the country amid the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.<\/p>\n

During the first Pre-State of the Nation Address (Pre-SONA) forum, Dar said the Covid-19 pandemic is an unprecedented crisis that has impacted food systems, disrupted agricultural value chains and movements, and posed risks to household food security.<\/p>\n

Dar said policy shifts in the country\u2019s food system are required in the new normal to support the agricultural sector\u2019s role in supplying the food requirements of the population.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith that, we are eyeing to look at policy shifts during this new normal and we just adopted a new food security framework which had been approved by the IATF (Interagency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases),\u201d Dar said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere must be transformation everywhere in food systems from production to consumption and all places in between which will compel us to do things differently,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The approved food security framework provides an overall vision and high-level goals for the sector to attain in the immediate and short-term. It focuses on five objectives of food production, namely: availability, accessibility, affordability, price stability, and food safety.<\/p>\n

Dar said the policy shifts aim to empower those marginalized in the food system and support diverse distribution efforts; harness the food system\u2019s interconnectedness with other sectors toward building resilience; address hunger and all forms of malnutrition, and provide solutions that are context-specific.<\/p>\n

DA\u2019s response to Covid-19 crisis<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dar noted that the pandemic resulted in bottlenecks in movement and logistics that prevented the delivery of food supply from provinces to urban consumers.<\/p>\n

He, however, assured the public that the country has enough food supplies in the next six months.<\/p>\n

\u201cItong last 100 days we have seen\u00a0na ang pinaka problema po dito ay<\/em>\u00a0(In the last 100 days, we have seen that the main problem) was more a problem of logistics and movement of food supplies,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have enough food supplies during the last 100 days and we\u2019ll continue to have enough food supplies in the next six months and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dar said they have introduced the \u201cKadiwa ni Ani at Kita\u201d direct marketing program to benefit both consumers and producers. This setup brings farmers\u2019 produce from provinces directly to consumers in urban areas.<\/p>\n

Dar said the Kadiwa efforts have generated sales of around PHP5.5 billion to participating farmers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sales as a result of the intervention coming from Kadiwa\u00a0ay nasa<\/em>\u00a0level\u00a0ng<\/em>\u00a0(is at the level of) PHP5.5 billion. It\u2019s formidable. It\u2019s such an important intervention that we will continue to institutionalize even under this new normal,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Aside from Kadiwa, Dar said the department has also put in place an \u201coverall umbrella program\u201d to elevate and increase food sufficiency level during the new normal.<\/p>\n

The \u201cPlant, Plant, Plant Program\u201d seeks to increase national agri-fishery output through intensified use of quality seeds, appropriate inputs, modern technologies to increase levels of productivity across all commodities, and thus ensure food productivity, availability, accessibility and affordability amidst the threat of Covid-19.<\/p>\n

Through this program, the agency will pursue a PHP8.5-billion Rice Resiliency Project aimed at producing more rice to increase the country’s sufficiency level from the present 87 percent to 93 percent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are working with the farmers and fishers to produce enough food and we are there nurturing and catalyzing all these efforts in tandem with various stakeholders, the local government units so that the level of productivity that we have to have and the desired income for the farming and fishing sector will happen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 Agriculture Secretary William Dar on Wednesday underscored the need to introduce policy shifts in governing food systems to achieve …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":238061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-260899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-filane-mikee-cervantes","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260899"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":260900,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260899\/revisions\/260900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}