GROWING ALTERNATIVE FOODS

GROWING ALTERNATIVE FOODS My dear countrymen, according to Microsoft Copilot, “in 2022, a national Social Weather Survey found that 12.2% of Filipino families, or an estimated 3.1 million families, experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months. Additionally, the World Food Program (WFP) reported that one out of ten households in the Philippines are food insecure, with the poorest regions being the most affected”. Copilot said further that “the incidence of hunger in the Philippines has been a significant concern. According to the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2024, the Philippines ranks 67th out of 127 countries, with a score of 14.4, indicating a moderate level of hunger. The GHI score is based on four component indicators: undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting, and child mortality”. Based on our present population, there are about 15 million people who are experiencing hunger, at one time or another. While hunger may not be real among those who have not experienced it, it is very real among those who have experienced it, sometimes everyday as a matter of fact. It does not take a genius to realize that in reality, hunger is just a side effect of poverty, meaning that people are experiencing hunger because they have no money to buy food. Or, they might have some amount of money, but they must spend it for their other needs. While I understand that if the poor people do not have the money to buy their food, we just have to give it to them for free. Well, the government is already doing that, but it is never enough, and the government may not have enough money to sustain a welfare state. What is the solution? I think one solution is community gardening, not for the purpose of making money, but for the purpose of feeding the hungry, During the Covid pandemic, community pantries and community kitchens emerged as groundswell movements, to help people who do not have the money to buy food because they either could not go to work, or they could not go to the places where they used to buy food. As I recall, community kitchens might have emerged as a result of community pantries, because people may not have the means to cook, even if they had raw foods to cook. Having learned from the experience of the Covid pandemic, I am now advocating that we should now have community gardens everywhere, in every vacant lot that is either owned by the government or by private owners. The latter could be borrowed by way of usufruct agreements, so that the owners will not fear that their properties will be taken from them. By way of bayanihan, everyone could help in the planting, and everyone could get their share for their family to eat. What do I mean by alternative foods? These are the foods that we may not normally eat a lot of but are good to eat in case of food shortages of some kind. Examples of these are potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, cassavas, breadfruits and taros. To that list, we could even include plants or crops that do not need standing water, such as upland rice, upland kangkong, moringa and mung beans. Your friend, IKE SENERES/12-02-24/visit my blog senseneres.blogspot.com