Welcome to the hunger games
Experts put forth a worst case scenario of high food prices jumping 8.5% by 2027. (Photo: Today)
The world is in a massive global food crisis and there’s so much to be done in order to stop it.
The United Nations World Food Programme said that the war in Ukraine, supply chain problems, and climate change continue to exacerbate high food prices globally.
“This crisis is about affordability, meaning there is food available, but the prices are really high,” Arif Husain, chief economist, pointed out.
“If we are unable to deal with certain things like fertilizer, not only actual fertilizer being available but at an affordable cost, then this crisis will turn into a crisis of availability come next year and that will spike the prices even more so,” said Husain.
Major financial institutions have sounded alarms on the food crisis which has been going on even before Russia invaded Ukraine and caused a landslide of production and export issues. World Bank managing director of development policy and partnerships Mari Pangestu said that if the drivers of the food crisis—trade limitations, energy costs, and supply chain disruptions—go unaddressed, food prices could remain high well into 2024.
But a much harder factor to control is also in play: Mother Nature. Erratic weather and climate emergencies like heatwaves and droughts massively impact crop yields. The Asian Development Bank raised concern on wheat production in Asia-Pacific, as China and India, the two biggest producers in the region, are battered by extreme weather conditions throughout 2022.
Food for thought
Consultancy firm Deep Knowledge Analytics ranked the Philippines as the most food insecure country in East and Southeast Asia based on three factors: food accessibility, crisis level, and food system and economic resilience. The report also puts the Philippines at sixth on a list of countries that spend the most percentage of household income on food. According to the report, “developing countries will have even greater food insecurity and hunger levels with most vulnerable paying more for less food.”
The Philippines Statistics Authority (PSA) also declared that an individual is not “food poor” if they spend more than P18.62 per meal. For a family of five, this comes up to about P8,379.
People criticized the finding as removed from reality and close to impossible when taking into account consumer goods prices.
“Binalikan ko [talaga] to para sabihin na yung siomai sa school namin P10, isang [barbeque] stick P25, pamasahe sa jeep student fare P15, P12 lang to nung sabado, small bottled water P10, tricycle P10.” said one Twitter user in a thread.
(I came back to this to say that siomai at our school is P10, one barbeque stick P25. Jeepney fare for students is P15, this was P12 last Saturday. Small water bottle P10, tricycle P10.)
Anakbayan also posted a statement questioning the accuracy of the data by comparing the P18 price tag to the cost of groceries. It was found that Filipinos spend about half of their income on utilities, transportation, and food—the last of which eats up a third of the budget.
Minimum wage in the country varies from region to region but in NCR, it goes from P533 to P570 a day. In 2021, 19.99 million Filipinos (3.50 million families) were considered poor as poverty incidence rose to 18.1% from 16.7% in 2018.
Rosario Guzman of IBON Foundation said the PSA uses outdated criteria to judge Filipino families’ food poverty, including the standards for nutritional caloric intake. For Guzman, to abide by these measurements is a way for the government to minimize statistics of those going hungry.
Chew on this crisis
Food insecurity is a massive problem and the most evident sign is hunger. Inmates at an Iloilo jail had the spotlight of media attention on them as they climbed to the roof to protest that they were not being properly fed under the care of the jail wardens.
At this point, the national food crisis has made itself an unwelcome guest at the dinner table. Not only are we dealing with a messy sugar shortage but the Department of Agriculture has already warned that local production of onions, garlic, and even salt will be staggering their way to the end of the year. To meet local demand, we may have to rely more on importation from other countries, surely a damper on Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s pledge to shift focus toward local producers. But where are we going to import from if the rest of the world is also at risk of going hungry?
As the holiday season approaches, expect a whole lot of wallet tightening and possibly a quaint Noche Buena table come December. For now, if you happen to find a way to make a substantial meal worth P18.62, do let me know.
