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Secure conditions of key agricultural forces

On World Food Day and World Rural Women’s Day

BAGUIO CITY (Oct. 15) — As a basic right and survival need, food has never been celebrated globally to ensure its security. This year on World Food Day, the United Nations’ (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) focuses on biodiversity for food security. Nevertheless important, food security will only be ensured if its basic requisites are satisfied.

In developing countries, the problem of landlessness among peasants and impacts of the GATT’s (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) agreement on agriculture has taken its toll on the struggle for sustainable agriculture as the backbone of the national economy.

Basic needs first

While FAO mentions that farmers are primarily responsible in protecting biodiversity, governments should likewise take responsibility in protecting the key forces of production in agriculture – the farmers and the land.

Agricultural production is expected to feed the growing world population, which increases by 2.4% yearly. Such rate translates to 56 million individuals in Asia annually. Most poor countries’ populations are accompanied by increased poverty incidence. FAO’s latest hunger estimates state that 50% of the hungry live in countries dependent on rice for nutrition. Only a little over 40% of surface land is currently used for agricultural purposes. The disproportion is glaring, with over 840 million persons suffering from hunger worldwide.

While biodiversity is an important ally in combating malnutrition, instability of staple foods in many nations is indicative of a deeper social crisis that requires a basic solution.

For instance, if landlessness has beset the Filipino peasant for so long now, the simple solution is to give them their own land to till. This, of course, is only part of a bigger crisis affecting the country in its entirety. The problem of long-standing foreign domination in the country manifests in the social, economic and political affairs of the state.

In the Philippines, including other poor countries, the condition of peasants is largely affected by feudal and patriarchal relations, such as the landlord-tenant system. Those who struggle against this system and fight for land rights end up as victims of human rights violation. If there lands left at all to till, vast tracts have already been converted for commercial and agri-business use, such as contract growing for big corporations.

The problem of food accessibility and market is yet another consideration. In the country, agricultural produce is very much marred by trade liberalization, which facilitated the entry of foreign goods at cheaper prices. The Philippine market, abound with these, leaves local produce hardly sold.

Institutions set up to ensure food accessibility and market provides little help, if none at all, such as the case of the National Food Authority (NFA). The National Federation of Peasant Women (AMIHAN) reminds us that the NFA was created to ensure sufficient rice supply in the country through our own farmers. Now, government is even taking steps at a time until NFA is finally privatized.

Also, rice importation in the country is prevalent. Vietnam tops the list of rice importing countries to the Philippines, according to the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics. With the key requirements of agricultural stability suffering from such conditions, critics have coined up World Foodless Day instead.

Women and agriculture

For centuries, women played an important part in the world of agriculture. Rural women, mainly farmers, represent at least 1.6 billion of the world’s population.

The International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP) recognizes that women farmers have acquired knowledge on most animal and plant species in relation to their agricultural activities. Accumulated knowledge has been passed from generation to generation and is expanded regularly by their field experience. Women are “at the heart of the implementation of good agricultural policies when carrying out their daily tasks which focuses on biodiversity preservation and food security”, says IFAP.

As such, World Rural Women’s Day, celebrated alongside World Food Day, should recognize women and their influential role in agriculture.

Globally, FAO estimates that rural women produce over 50% of the food grown worldwide. This includes about 80% of the food in Africa, 60% in Asia, and over 40% in Latin America.

Women groups worldwide continue to lobby for the promotion of action in support to peasant women. With little or no status, Rural Womyn Zone describes rural women as “lacking the power to secure land rights and access to vital services in agriculture such as training and education.”

The same group adds that of the total burden of paid and unpaid work, women bear an average of 53% in developing countries and 51% in industrialized. The difference is actually sparse.

In the country, women’s group Innabuyog-Gabriela explains that most ancestral domains and resources of indigenous peoples (IPs) are exploited by multinational corporations, usually in the form projects on large-scale mining and construction of mega dams. Worldwide, IPs depend on land for survival. But with local and foreign corporations abusing their resources, they now have to fight for what is inherently theirs.

As such, peoples across cultures celebrate World Food Day and World Rural Women’s Day as continuing assertion of rights to land, resources, and food for the people.

In the Philippine agricultural sector, the demand to the national government will remain until it is heeded: land to the peasants and genuine agrarian reform. # Abi Taguba Bengwayan for NORDIS

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