It is my great honor and pleasure to join you in today's regional observance of World Food Day on the theme of The right-to-food.
All of us, I am certain, are inspired by the presence of Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, who has made important contributions to the war against poverty and hunger through her work in education and culture, natural resources conservation and rural development.
In 1996, as a member of the Philippine House of Representatives, I participated in the World Food Summit under the auspices of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. At this conference, governments adopted a declaration which called for the halving of the world's hungry population of 842 million by the year 2015. In June of 2002, I returned to Rome, this time as the Philippine Minister of Agriculture, to attend the sequel to the 1996 meeting. As we know, this follow-up Summit led to the adoption in 2004 of the FAO Voluntary Guidelines to support the right of every person to adequate food in the context of national food security.
I remember that 2002 Summit vividly for another reason. My father Jeremias died on the day of my arrival in Rome.
My father came from a landed family in northern Philippines. During his boyhood, he became aware of the wide economic, social and cultural gaps between his landlord family and their share tenants. His elders told him that the tenants were poor because they were "lazy, ignorant and unwilling to change".
To the surprise of many, my father turned his back against his family's interests. He devoted his life to the cause of the Filipino peasantry. In the process, he realized that the vicious cycle of underdevelopment and impoverishment could be broken. But first, leaders had to change their attitudes towards the poor.
My father liked to compare what he called "the bird's point-of-view" and "the worm's point-of-view". He said that many would-be leaders and reformers failed because they only saw the world from their perspective. Like the eagle, they could fly high and quickly across great distances. From the air, they could see many things that the worm on the ground could not. They were critical of the slow-moving peasants, whom they considered timid, backward and mendicant.
Keynote address
Leonardo Q. Montemayor
President of the Federation of Free Farmers and Chairperson of the Federation of Free Farmers Cooperatives (Philippines)
His lesson was that, for leaders to be effective, they must understand the actual conditions and mind set of the poor and the oppressed. They must learn to learn to depend on the people to identify and prioritize their concerns and solutions. Only then can leaders arrive at policies and plans that the people will find relevant and deserving of their support. In our host country today, the ability of King Bhumibol Adulyadej to listen and to empathize with human aspirations has endeared His Majesty to the Thai people and galvanized their support for his programs.
During the past decade, Asia-Pacific countries as a whole – and the People's Republic of China in particular – have achieved dramatic progress in reducing poverty and hunger. On the other hand, so much more needs to be done. In terms of the number of poor people in the world, our region accounts for over half of them. Inequalities in economic opportunities and incomes are also growing between our urban and rural sectors. The situation is not being helped any by declining levels of both in-country funding and Official Development Assistance for agricultural development and food security programs.
Poverty in Asia and the Pacific primarily wears a rural face. Three out of every four destitute and undernourished persons live in the countryside. Many – if not most – of them are small farmers, pastoralists, forest occupants, fisher folk and other types of rural workers.
In 1973, I heard the legendary Cesar Chavez of the United Farm Workers of America address a national convention of American teachers. Mr Chavez expressed pride over the fact that his members were producing the fruits and vegetables that were feeding many Americans well. Unfortunately, he pointed out, these same farm workers were toiling under subhuman conditions and their families often went to bed hungry.
At the time, I felt as if Mr Chavez was also describing the difficult plight of small farmers, fishers and agricultural workers in the Philippines. Sad to say, the situation of many rural dwellers today remains largely unchanged.
Except for those in countries like Malaysia which have properly funded settlement schemes, many small farmers throughout Asia-Pacific have mostly been left to fend for themselves. Despite this, hundreds of millions of them have managed to develop their landholdings and communities – using their own money, sweat and know-how. Individually, their inputs look miniscule. But collectively, the economic value of their investments would dwarf the budgets of governments and the capital of the biggest corporations.
Based on my organization's half-century of experience, we believe that the small farm holding model can better enable a poor rural family, and society as a whole, to withstand the shocks arising from major economic, social and even political crises. Given adequate support and linkages to agro-industries, the smallholder system can help stem the massive outpouring of rural residents from the farms to the cities, forests and fragile eco-systems. Moreover, a diversified farming operation can do a better job at meeting the essential dietary requirements of a smallholder household than a largely export-dependent, single-crop plantation can for its agricultural workers.
Let us take the case of coconut. In 2005, the Asia-Pacific accounted for 10.691 million hectares, or 89 percent, of the global coconut area of 12.167 million hectares. The region produced 50.961 billion nuts, or 86 percent, of 59.569 billion nuts world-wide. Millions of people depend on the industry for their livelihood and income.
Ironically, farmers who rely on this "tree of life" are among the poorest of the poor.
And yet, many examples abound on what can be accomplished to defeat poverty and hunger in coconut lands. Firstly, the areas between coconut trees can be devoted to multi-storey cropping, livestock raising and honey production. This will multiply farm incomes and create job opportunities in the villages. Additionally, the potential of the coconut as a base for the processing sector should be fully exploited. Scores of consumer and industrial products can be derived from the nut and the tree itself. For example, the husk can be made into car upholstery and bed mattresses, geo-textiles and other useful and environmentally friendly by-products.
Coconut-producing countries should extract the numerous health, nutrition, and bio-energy by-products from coconut water, nectar, sugar, white meat and milk. The technology exists for making coconut milk – a highly nutritious drink. In the case of virgin coconut oil, some clinical trials and historical accounts suggest its effectiveness against viral diseases like SARS and HIV-AIDS.
Without closing our eyes to problems in the urban areas, I believe that we can overcome mass destitution by addressing its rural roots and enlisting the active involvement of the rural poor. As one Filipino peasant leader puts it, "The farmer is the problem, but he is also the solution!"
What does the small rural producer need to overcome poverty and food insecurity?
Many small farmers, including women, do not have secure access to and control over land. To them, land ownership (or at least secure tenure) is vital for several reasons. It enhances their sense of self-worth, their social standing and their credit worthiness. It gives them and their families a strong psychological and material incentive to work harder, invest more capital and to care more for their natural resource endowments.
Over the past several decades, a number of Asian countries have carried out rent-reduction and land-to-the tiller programs. The decrease in land rentals alone have brought up the incomes of sharecroppers-turned-leaseholders. In China, agricultural reforms begun in the late 1970s stimulated rural growth and incomes by giving small holders greater control over their individual land holdings and output. Since any production in excess of the fixed land rental or procured production quota would belong to the small farmer, he now had a greater economic incentive to maximize his farm output and productivity by adopting improved technologies and putting in more labor and resources.
In this connection, I would like to acknowledge the leadership of the FAO, which organized the World Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development in Rome in 1979. Unfortunately, the critical role of agrarian reform in the fight against underdevelopment and poverty became muted during the last two decades. But recent events, such as the 2006 International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where the FAO played a prominent part, has once again highlighted the importance of the issue.
Due to their crushing debt burden, unfavorable terms of trade and/or weak governance, many developing nations in our region are unable to provide essential farm infrastructure like irrigation, feeder roads, and post harvest facilities for drying, storing and processing agricultural and fisheries produce. Furthermore, despite the rapid advances and reduced costs in information and communications technology, most farmers in these countries still lack access to timely advice on markets, technologies and services. Rain-fed, hilly and up lands are especially affected, because – historically – public investments have been focused on the more physically accessible and politically influential lowlands. In recent years, the periodic episodes of El Nino and other severe weather disturbances have compounded these problems. The situation is even more difficult for archipelagoes like Indonesia, the Philippines and the Pacific states, where port and shipping facilities are severely inadequate and where transport of agricultural and fisheries commodities is generally accorded lower priority.
These deficiencies, coupled with trade-distorting agricultural subsidies and non-tariff barriers by industrialized countries, make for a grossly uneven playing field in international trade and undermine the food security of developing nations. Not surprisingly, there has been a rising clamor against the serious imbalances in the WTO's agriculture-related agreements and a hardening of position by developing country governments and their citizens during the current Doha Round.
All this points to the wisdom of supporting the objective of self-sufficiency of farming households for their basic food, nutrition and even health needs. Malnutrition in a farming area should be deemed inexcusable. Many households can be assisted easily to establish a family garden for vegetables, legumes, root crops and medicinal plants. Moreover, family members can be taught how to process their surplus produce for home consumption instead of letting them rot in the field.
A similar approach can be adopted in school gardens and in idle urban lands. It can also apply to small fisher folk, many of whom are farmers by day. In addition, their income from capture fisheries can be augmented through the introduction of fish cages, seaweed farming and other aquaculture operations.
Rain-fed areas account for a major portion of impoverished and undernourished people in Asia and the Pacific. Farmers in these lands require farm- and community-level water catchments and shallow tube wells, which are cheaper, easier and faster to set up. They want scientists to develop crops that are sturdier, less input-dependent and better-yielding. They also need sound advice on sustainable farming and agro-forestry practices, plus marketing support for their products.
Two years ago, I visited the village of Kothapally in Andhra Pradesh in India. The Adarsha integrated watershed management project therein is a good example of a participatory, farmer-centered approach to sustainable development and natural resources conservation in semi-arid zones. Using small-scale water impounding as its point of entry, the project has energized rural households, especially women, to go into diversified cropping, production of vermiculture-based fertilizer, raising of water buffaloes and other livelihood activities. It demonstrates the excellent collaboration among rural residents and their associations, the state and local governments, NGOs, local research and extension institutions, and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), which is based in the state. The project is now being replicated in other watersheds in Andhra Pradesh and in several Asian countries.
While relying on the native wisdom and contributions of small rural producers, we can further enhance rural incomes and food security by motivating the private sector to invest in the countryside. There are ample opportunities for joint ventures and other commercial arrangements between businessmen and rural workers and their organizations, based on respect for farmers' rights and giving them a genuine stake in the business enterprise.
The magnitude of remittances from citizens of Asia-Pacific countries working abroad is enormous. (In the case of the Philippines, this could be as much as one-half of the national government budget.) This fact poses a challenge on how to channel these substantial inflows into profitable agri-business projects that will provide more jobs and more food.
The rights-based approach to individual and national food security will succeed if there is political will from above and from below. Reform-minded leaders need the firm prodding and backing of strong grassroots organizations of the poor, especially in the face of opposition from those who are resistant to change.
Incorporation of the right to food and other basic human rights into national constitutions and laws, while important, will not be enough. Their realization on the ground will be blocked or hampered, unless the poor demand and work for their effective implementation. To achieve this purpose, the rural poor must harness their numbers into an organized force for their empowerment. This will require a good organizational philosophy and program, responsible leaders, capable managers and active members.
The precise form of organization will vary, depending on legal, political and socio-economic factors and priorities in each country. It could be a small self-help group engaged in lending or production, a cooperative marketing its members' produce, and so on. My own inclination is toward organizations of the farm or trade union type, consolidated and networked from the village up to the national level. This farm union model allows an association to take up a variety of roles and services at local and national levels, ranging from membership representation and policy advocacy to management of social and economic ventures. Ideally, an organization should be guided by the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity. Solidarity ensures that all members support each other and follow a common purpose and direction. Subsidiary encourages initiative, self-help and flexibility from the bottom level of the organization, upwards.
To illustrate, may I share the experience of my own organization, the Federation of Free Farmers. In 1982, after several years of intense lobbying, the FFF convinced the Philippine government to institute an Integrated Social Forestry Program. Unlike in the past, when they would be driven away, landless and shifting forest occupants were now offered long-term leases over denuded public forest lands up to eighteen percent in slope, provided that they would follow sustainable agro-forestry cultivation and environmental conservation methods.
In several towns of the central Philippine province of Bohol, farm settlers belonging to my Federation have transformed – mainly on a self-help basis – close to a thousand hectares of previously deforested lands into productive agro-forest communities. By planting various forest, fruit and coconut trees, they regenerated dry springs, which have enabled them to grow rice, vegetables and fish. The farmers also raise their own chickens, goats and other livestock. With counterpart funding secured by the FFF, our members built public school classrooms for their children. Likewise, they installed a water distribution system, which has spared household members, especially the women and children, from carrying heavy loads of water over long distances to fetch water for family use. They secured national government funding to construct a gravel road linking their mountain villages to the national highway system. Today, the main concerns of our members are the setting up of a small cooperative sawmill and a mini-hydro-electric plant. They are also concerned about small reptiles and monkeys that try to steal their chickens and crops!
Stricter environmental standards and the continuing rise in petroleum prices have triggered much interest in bio-fuels. While demand for bio-fuels will help stabilize the prices for raw material producers, the shift from food to fuel crops production could endanger food security. One alternative would be to limit the production of bio-fuel feedstock to marginal or idle lands. Another would be to encourage the cultivation of crops with both food and bio-fuel uses. A good example is sweet sorghum, which can be used for food, feed, fuel and fiber.
Bio-technology is another subject where the concerns of small farmers and consumers should be fully addressed. Farmers ask that research and development, especially by the public sector, give priority to their needs, such as the improvement of crop varieties that are important for their livelihood and food security, but which may not be financially attractive to private bio-tech companies. Farmers also want to be sure that seeds and other products of bio-technology will not only give them decent returns but are safe for humans and the environment.
With the more frequent occurrences of severe climatic changes like El Nino and La Nina, our region must give beef up our capability to predict these phenomena with better timeliness and precision. Hand-in-hand with an early warning system, we need to work closely with sectors and institutions in vulnerable areas in organizing the logistical network, with which they can deal with future relief and rehabilitation problems. In this regard, buffer-stocking of food staples will be helpful at local, national and even supra-national levels, as in the case of the ASEAN and the East Asian Emergency Rice Reserve programs.
Small farmers support food aid programs in cases of emergency. Food assistance can also be tied to other objectives like improving school attendance and nutritional levels of children from poor families, and with alleviating joblessness through food-for-work schemes. However, farmers feel that these programs should not undercut their livelihood by lowering prices of local farm produce. Moreover, food aid should be done in a manner that is supportive of local producers. For example, food aid supplies can be sourced internally from areas with surplus production or stockpiles. School feeding programs can offer a ready market for locally produced like milk and rice. In food-for-work projects, priority must be given to the construction and maintenance of infrastructure that will improve agriculture productivity. Incidentally, the successful dairy development program of India shows how foreign food aid and other commodity assistance programs can be transformed from short-term, charitable actions into sustainable national programs with wide-ranging beneficial impacts on food security, livelihood creation and rural development.
