WORLD RURAL WOMEN’S DAY
OCTOBER 15

AMIHAN
National Federation of Peasant Women
80-A Mapang-akit St. , Brgy. Pinyahan,
Quezon City 1100 PHILIPPINES
Telefax: (632) 922-3982
Email: amihan_psntwmn@yahoo.com

Peasant Women’s Agenda For Food Security and Self Sufficiency

(Paper prepared by AMIHAN, National Federation of Peasant Women for the Forum Cum Exhibit on People’s Food Sovereignty, September 11, 2004, Mabini Hall, Quezon Memorial Circle, Quezon City, Philippines. Sponsored by SIBAT, EED Partners’ task Force on Indigenous People’s Concerns, Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development(APWLD) and AMIHAN, the forum is part of the People’s Caravan 2004, Philippine Leg, bearing the Theme: “ Asserting Our Rights to Land and Food” )

Introduction

Food security is the battlecry and the foremost goal of many international organizations like the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Agriculture and nutrition programs have been patterned with policies and programs pushed by such organizations and institutions to combat hunger and alleviate poverty.

But instead of “feeding the world” and alleviating poverty,” their own data shows the contrary.The FAO’s state of Food Insecurity Report in 2002, reveal the frightening figure of the state of world hunger:

• 3.5 billion are malnourished
• 1.2 billion are suffering from extreme poverty
• 835 million are hungry
• 840 million people were undernourished from 1998-2000
  
  
• 11 million in industrialized countries

• 30 million in countries in transition

• 799 million in the developing countries

• 6 million children under the age of 5 die each year due to hunger
• in the worst affected countries, a newborn child can look forward to an average of barely 38 years of healthy life
• 1 in 7 children born in countries where hunger is most common will die before reaching the age of 5

In the latest State of Food Insecurity Report, the FAO reported that a number of countries have already reduced hunger steadily since the World Food Summit (WFS) baseline period of 1990-1992. But still the reduction of hunger will only be temporary unless its root cause has been eliminated. The FAO itself recognizes the fact that the root of hunger is poverty. But despite this recognition, it has remained mum on the exploitation and oppression that breeds poverty.

Ironically, almost four fifths of the hungry are the producers of food – those who till the land and depend on agriculture to make a living. To top it all, almost all of them live in countries that are producing food surpluses.

For rural women, the issue of food security is a major concern. Rural women produce more than half or 60-80% of the world’s food. Yet the number of women living in poverty and hunger has doubled since the ‘70s. The rural women and their families do not have access to safe, sufficient and nutritious food. In many developing countries, more than half of the population live in the rural areas, and more than half are poor. Compare this to the urban areas where only an average of 25% are poor.

Landlessness, Hunger, Poverty and Peasant Women

Sixty six per cent of the total number of poor in the Philippines work in agriculture, fishery and forestry sectors. Poverty is more severe in the rural than in the urban areas. Sixty eight per cent of the people in the rural areas are poor, while only 34% of the urban residents are poor.

The typical poor household in the rural areas is employed in crop farming but also raises livestock or poultry. The head of the household is a landless agricultural worker or an upland farmer on heavily sloped land cultivating a small plot planted in rice, corn, coconuts or sugar cane. (World Bank, A Strategy to Fight Poverty in the Philippines, 1996)

As the country’s economic situation worsens and as millions of Filipinos continue to be pushed further into the ravaging pits of poverty and hunger, this figure will continue to grow.

Indeed, more recent data on poverty and hunger released in 2003 by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (FNRI-DOST),shows that eight out of ten Filipino households are hungry. Filipino economist Alejandro Lichauco, noted that ” the Philippines has now become a case of humanitarian disaster warranting the urgent concern of the international community and a program of international aid and assistance.” Presented in human terms, he added is the news that “ mothers in Nueva Ecija are now selling their babies, farmers in rice-rich Nueva Ecija are scrounging for field rats to eat, and infants in the nation’s public hospitals including the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) – are dying every day. (Alejandro Lichauco, “Mass Hunger in the Philippines and the Fiscal Debt Crisis: Today ( Philippines) August 29, 2004.)

Sixty percent of the total women population in the country reside in the rural areas, and they constitute half of the poor. But as they experience the ravages of poverty and hunger with their male counterparts, they suffer even more, by virtue of the view that women are subordinate and inferior to men. Women experience various forms of discrimination in work and within families.

Through the years, data at the National Statistics Office(NSO) shows that women’s rate of participation in the rural labor force is a measly 50% compared that to the males which registers a high rate of 85% and above. Of the total number of women employed in agriculture, more than half (52%) are unpaid family labor, while that of the males comprise only 17%. If ever they get to be employed in waged work, they receive lower wages than the men. Moreover, the women also registered the biggest number of unemployed in the rural areas. From an unemployment rate of 8.4% in 1988 it increased to 10.6 in 2001.

As opportunities for work and employment is getting narrow for women , and as employment generates meager and insufficient income for the needs of women and their families, women engage in additional work mostly the off farm income generating activities. These exacts a heavy toll on their health, as all these means longer working hours and less time for rest. In addition, women also experience discrimination in the allocation of food within families, on the already precarious health and nutritional situation of the women. In a typical rural family for example, the father is given the biggest allocation, on the basis that he is the one earning for the upkeep of the family and is the one working the hardest to put food on the table. The next in the allocation are the children on the basis, that they need the nutrients to grow and be strong and become later a productive labor in the farm. The last in the allocation of food is the mother, on the basis that her work is not as laborious as the men.

This discrimination happens, and most women accept it as given, despite the double and triple burden that women bear daily: household work, work in the farm, other income generating activities to augment the meager income derived from the farm. In Amihan case studies, it is shown that peasant women, spend 18-21 hours daily in order to perform these various tasks and responsibilities.

The urgency of the issue of food security to women is borne by the fact that they are the reproducer of children, of future generations of Filipinos who will become farm hands, workers of factories, and individuals who will turn the wheels of the economic and political life of our country. Food insecurity for women especially those in their productive years, would mean sickly mothers, and therefore also sickly children that lacks nutrition for proper development of their brain and their physical bodies.

The 6 th National Nutrition Survey of the Philippines released in July, 2004 presents the following disturbing data:

• Four out of ten pregnant women are anemic
• Six out of 10 infants up to a year old are anemic

The gravity of the above data is shown when ADB report that: “ Scrawny mothers often have premature or underweight children who by age three will be stunted. These small children eventually will become mothers whose risks of dying in pregnancy is 10 times greater than a woman of normal height and weight.The NNS further notes that” by age five the rate of children suffering from anemia is reduced to 14%, but the damage will have been done by then, as its between six months and three years that a child’s brain are shaped.” ADB further added that: “ Ill fed kids are deprived from 10-14 per cent intelligence quotient. Cognitive loss is 10 percent for stunted individuals, 4 percent for iodine deficient kids.” Worse, as asserted by the same report, these deficits can never be recovered in later years. So we are now faced with less intelligent, less adroit, and decrepit generation unable to compete with more well fed counterparts in countries in the Asian region.( cited in “Invisible Hostages,” by Juan L. Mercado, Viewpoint: Philippine Daily Inquirer, July 27, 2004)

The Philippine government defines food security as a condition where people have an adequate supply of and economic access to nutritious food for a healthy life. True enough, food security can be determined by the availability, accessibility and stability of food supplies. But the root cause why food security is never attained, is that the root cause of food insecurity, is never challenged, and worse is never acknowledged.

Never challenged is the persistent landlessness and monopoly control of landlords and bourgeois compradors of agricultural lands and other resources for production, the government corruption and the virtual surrender of the country’s economic and political sovereignty to US led foreign monopoly interests, making the entire economic life of the country, including determination of domestic policies for food production, distribution and trade, consistent with their interests, more than the welfare of the Filipino people.

Eight out of ten farmers are landless. The more than 13 million hectares agricultural land in the country are controlled by big landlords and bourgeois compradors. In addition, vast tracts of lands are controlled by big multinational corporations. In the State of the Nation Address (Sona) of President Gloria Arroyo in July, she promised 2 million hectares more lands to multinational agribusiness corporations.

The accession of the country to the World Trade Organization, worsened the problem of landlessness and hunger. In a bid to be able to compete in the world market, landlords have converted their lands previously devoted for the production of food crops, for the production of so called “high value crops,” or crops which have a high market value in the international market. This has narrowed down even more the land accessible to the farmers for the production of our basic staple grains and other food crops

Rice which is the most important agricultural crop of the country as it is the basic staple food of 90% of the total population, was not spared from the rules of the WTO. The Philippines have chosen to retain quantitative restrictions on rice importation for 10 years starting 1995. In return the country agreed to import at least 5% of the total rice requirement of the country, amounting to only 29, 865 metric tons in 1995 to gradually increase to 224, 005 mt in 2004. The availment of the quantitative restriction as a supposed buffer measure against the flooding of imported rice in the country, did not serve its function. Years after the entry of the country to the WTO, rice imports have risen to unprecedented levels reaching its highest in 2002 with a total rice imports of 1,239,366 metric tons. This year, it is expected to reach 1 million metric tons. To date, the Philippines ranks as the fifth highest importer of rice in the world.

Amazingly, even with the large supply of imported rice in the local market, the expected lowering of rice prices never materialized. Merchant traders are still able to manipulate retail prices

The National Food Authority (NFA), the government agency mandated to “ensure food security” by maintaining a level of buffer stock, that can stabilize rice prices and protect it against price manipulation, have not been doing its job. With a mandate to buy at least 10% of the total rice produce of the farmers, in practice it is able to buy only a meager 3 percent, delivering almost the entire farmers’ produce at the merchant traders’ doorstep, and virtually surrendering to them the power to determine rice prices at profits margins of their wishes.

The quantitative restriction facility availed of by the country, is due to expire in June, 2005. To take its place will be tarrification which will eventually be phased down, and the withdrawal of domestic production support. It is important to realize what will come of our rice industry and our national food security when current government policies and the WTO impositions will take effect: displacement of millions of farmers,traders’ profiteering, volatile rice prices and supplies,massive hunger and malnutrition.

The current fiscal crisis experienced by the country in real terms means that the government no longer have the money to finance its various operations, funds to provide for the basic social services for the people. Most importantly, it no longer has the money to pay its debt service obligations both to international financial institutions and local banks. With the non fulfillment of the latter, the country’s loans, a huge source of dollar for the government’s operations, and import payments will also stop coming.

The Agenda of the Peasant Women For the Attainment of Food Security and Food Self –Sufficiency

For the peasant women, there is food security, when food is available and accessible for all Filipinos especially the farmers and workers and their families that comprise the majority of the country’s population. Also these food must be safe, nutritionally sufficient, based on recognized standards of nutritional needs of the population.

But this condition warrants requisites for its attainment. One, is the evolvement of a healthy and dynamic agriculture, tilled by peasant women and men, who also control the various production resources such as land, seeds, technology, irrigation and other farming resources. This condition must work with the absolute guarantee of the government based on its mandate to provide protection to the farmers and all producers of food.

Second, is the development of a strong manufacturing and processing industry that shall process agricultural raw materials into basic products needed by the population. These industries must be controlled and run by women and men workers.

Third, is the development of genuine industrial base, to develop and manufacture machines, develop technology for the needs of the agriculture and manufacturing and processing industry. These must be developed, independent of the control of foreign technology.

Fourth, a trade policy that works for the interest of our producers, and at the same time make us able to access other basic necessities, not produced in the country, and also market for our surplus products. These trading rules must be for the trading countries’ mutual benefit. An immediate and important step must be for the country to get out of the WTO.

Fifth, and most important, we must regain our economic and political sovereignty, long held and controlled by US imperialism. This control has stunted our country’s economic growth, made it subservient to the economic interests of the US. It has tied our country to its needs, making the country a rich source of cheap raw materials, cheap labor and dumping ground for their surplus products. Via the policies and programs dictated by US controlled multilateral agencies such as the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), it has designed the Philippine food and agricultural program, including food production, distribution and trade, to make it serve its huge profits making sprees, to the detriment of the Filipino consumers and producers of food. An immediate step that must be undertaken is to get the country out of the WTO and to cancel our debt obligations and debt conditions to international financial institutions such as the IMF-WB.

The government’s subservience and blind obedience to the dictates of the US and other capitalist countries is an act in self preservation, as they stand to benefit from the economic policies and programs imposed by the US and its allies. It is therefore important to install a government that can stand up and resist the dictates of the US and its agencies and really work for the welfare of the Filipinos.

To realize these requisites, the peasant class must unite with the rest of the marginalized sectors of the Philippine society and work for the achievement of the abovementioned requisites. Through painstaking work of organizing, educating and mobilizing of the peasantry, millions will join the struggle to build an economy that is independent and truly serves the interests and needs of the Filipinos.