When the National Academy of Science and Technology, Philippines (NAST PHL) submitted its vision “Feeding Metro Manila in 2050” to The Rockefeller Foundation’s Food System Vision Prize on December 5, 2019, its multi-institutional team of proponents could not have imagined a pandemic further aggravating the pervasive problem of food insecurity in the country, particularly in the capital region that it said has a “dysfunctional food system.”
The vision proposes building a system that “nurtures the health of consumers and the environment, provides adequate income for farmers adapts to a changing climate, and is sensitive to the diversity of food culture.”
At the same time, it encourages the consumers to switch to a science-based diet—such as the Planetary Health Diet (PHD).
The PHD promotes consuming more fruits, vegetables, grain legumes, fish and starchy roots and tubers, while reducing the intake of refined carbohydrates (white rice, white bread and sugar), meat and eggs.
It should be noted that the results of the Rapid Nutrition Assessment Survey (RNAS) that the Department of Science and Technology’s Food and Nutrition Research Institute (DOST-FNRI) released on December 29, 2020, confirmed the “enormous impact” of the Covid-19 pandemic on the nutrition and food security of Filipinos.
Conducted from November 3 to December 3, 2020, the RNAS of 5,717 households with 7,240 individuals revealed that 62.1 percent (6 in 10 households) experienced “moderate to severe food insecurity,” noting that the most food-insecure were households with infants and young children (7 in 10) and pregnant women (8 in 10).
Food insecurity peaked between March and April 2020, when the country was placed under enhanced community quarantine.
The RNAS also revealed that food-insecure families coped by buying food on credit (71.8 percent), borrowing food from relatives or neighbors (66.3 percent), bartering (30.2 percent) and limiting the food intake of adults in favor of children (21.1 percent).
Related story: https://businessmirror.com.ph/2020/12/30/households-with-children-pregnant-women-hurt-by-food-insecurity-in-pandemic/
Nourishing food future
Led by Academician Dr. Eufemio T. Rasco Jr., NAST PHL Agricultural Sciences Division chairman who worked for more than a decade on the vision, together with 15 organizations and research institutions, it was awarded a special mention prize of $25,000 in August 2020 to pursue its design of a “nourishing food future.”
The vision’s partners included the Philippine Chamber of Agriculture and Food Inc.; De La Salle Araneta University; University of the Philippines Project SPICE, or Smart Plant Production in Controlled Environments; East-West Seed Co. Inc.; Coalition for Agriculture Modernization of the Philippines Inc.; Pambansang Kilusan ng mga Samahang Magsasaka; Urban Agriculture PH; Management Association of the Philippines; ABCDE Foundation; Young Professionals for Agricultural Development Philippines; Department of Agriculture’s Philippine Rice Research Institute; DOST’s National Research Council of the Philippines; De La Salle University-Manila; UP Los Baños Institute of Plant Breeding; and Kapisanan ng Magsasaka, Mangingisda at Manggagawa ng Pilipinas Inc.
The vision landed at the top 14 out of more than 1,300 food-system visions from 119 countries as represented by over 4,000 organizations working for a “more regenerative, nourishing, equitable and sustainable future.”
The vision became the “starting point” for developing inclusive and sustainable solutions on food system and health, alongside four other societal concerns, as part of the country’s 30-year strategic foresight plan being prepared by NAST PHL, the advisory body to the president and the Cabinet on policies related to science and technology.
Related story: https://businessmirror.com.ph/2020/07/12/dost-pushes-for-30-year-foresight-plan-to-solve-phl-woes/
Accomplishing the vision by 2050
“We did not foresee that a pandemic will aggravate food insecurity, but it can be considered a positive development in making the consumers aware of the importance of eating properly,” Rasco told the BusinessMirror in an e-mail.
Rasco added that the pandemic has also accelerated the development of e-commerce that serve the farmers, making it easier for them to access farm inputs and sell products online.
He sees more investors coming into the food system, particularly those who “lost business in other sectors of the economy.”
The vision was taken up at the online science information forum, “Feeding Metro Manila in 2050: Promoting responsible consumption to address unhealthy eating preferences of consumers,” organized by the NAST PHL on March 29.
The forum’s speakers were DOST-FNRI Director Dr. Imelda Angeles-Agdeppa; Dr. Ernesto O. Brown, director of the Socio-Economics Research Division of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development (DOST-PCAARRD); and Dr. Jose Rafael A. Marfori of the Health Economics and Policy of the Department of Clinical Epidemiology at UP Manila’s College of Medicine.
Promoting responsible consumption
The vision believes that food habits are a product of culture, and promoting responsible consumption can be addressed through various approaches over the next 30 years.
These measures include formal (basic, college and medical and nutrition, e.g., “food as medicine”) and informal (promotion of science-based diet, such as PHD, recruitment of top chefs) education; adopting PHD-based recipes for feeding programs and institutions (e.g., military and police camps, hospitals, prisons); and distributing PHD food packs for disaster relief.
In technology, developing the PHD Plus app; in research and development, studying the impact of PHD on health and learning abilities; and adopting the PHD as a component of the universal health care.
In farming practices, diversifying and restructuring agriculture for the PHD diet, selecting crops, livestock or fish species and breeds with low environment footprints yet nutritious; adopting practices that reduce pollution or food contamination (e.g., use slow-release fertilizers, biological pesticides); and producing food closer to the point of consumption.
In processing, trading, retail and food service, using locally available biodegradable packaging materials; reducing waste through improved logistics (e.g., cold chain) and cleaning bodies of water for the food safety of fish and other aquatic food products.
Boosting immunity by staying healthy
Citing the Global Forum on Food Security of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the DOST-FNRI defined food insecurity as the “state in which people are at risk or actually suffering from inadequate consumption to meet nutritional requirements.”
Food insecurity happens when food is either not physically available or inadequately utilized, and when people lack “social or economic access” to adequate food, according to the FAO.
DOST-FNRI further noted that “proper nutrition is essential especially during pandemics and calamities to stay healthy by boosting immunity and avoiding contracting Covid-19 and other diseases.”
“When people are healthy, they cannot only improve their capability to fight different virus outbreaks, but can also participate in the formation of better and healthier societies,” Agdeppa said in her presentation at the forum.
The country’s chief nutrition scientist discussed the forms of unhealthy lifestyle among Filipinos—unhealthy or poor dietary patterns is among them—and what the government has been doing to avoid their consequences.
She said the World Health Organization (WHO) has emphasized that 60 percent of the quality of an individual’s life depends on his behavior and lifestyle, wherein over time healthy lifestyle behaviors, coupled with proper food intake, prevents diseases and maintains good health.
“While some [Filipinos] choose to stay healthy through their conscious choices, many carelessly behave unhealthily,” Agdeppa pointed out.
These unhealthy lifestyle practices include physical inactivity, smoking, alcohol “binge drinking,” drug abuse, stress and the excessive use of gadgets.
These result in illnesses (noncommunicable and chronic diseases), additional health expenditure, unproductivity due to economic losses and even death.
Agdeppa said that the top causes of death, such as heart illnesses and other noncommunicable diseases, are related to poor lifestyle, food choices and sedentary living.
Based on the dietary quality findings of the 2019 Expanded National Nutrition Survey, Agdeppa said that the mean one-day per capita fruit and vegetable consumption among Filipino households from 1978 to 2018 has steeply declined.
“From 145 grams for vegetables, it went down to 126 grams, and for fruits, from 104 grams to 41 grams, less than the WHO recommendation of about 400 grams,” she said.
Eating fruits and vegetables reduces the probability of overweight and obesity, diabetes, high triglycerides and hypertension. The prevalence of these “consequences of an unhealthy lifestyle” has alarmingly rose since 1993.
To help mitigate food insecurity, DOST-FNRI has implemented the Malnutrition Reduction Program, an integrated intervention strategy on nutrition education, and the transfer and commercialization of food technologies through its technology transfer program.
DOST-FNRI’s “Oh My Gulay!” and “Pinggang Pinoy” programs model the establishment of edible garden in urban offices and a healthy food plate as an easy-to-understand guide on the variety of foods needed for optimum nutrition, respectively.
Developing the PHD Plus app
In the vision “Feeding Metro Manila in 2050,” a typical plate will have a diversity of food assembled by a robust app that considers an individual’s health needs, the impact on the environment, local food culture and the farmers’ welfare.
Tasked to fulfill this goal through a program developing the PHD Plus app is the DOST-wide technical working group composed of representatives from NAST PHL, FNRI, PCAARRD, Philippine Council for Health Research and Development, and the DOST Planning and Evaluation Service, headed by Brown of PCAARRD.
“We are close to completing the proposal and we hope the DOST will be able to fund it,” Brown said during the forum.
According to Brown, the aim of the program is to develop a mobile application that will guide consumers to have informed food choices based on an individual’s biological information, the nutritional and health benefits of various foods and values, such as the impact on farmer’s income and environment.
“The program will also analyze the economic, environmental and nutritional aspects of the food system and pilot the transformation strategies to help transform it,” Brown said.
He added that PCAARRD has also implemented other programs aligned with the “structural transformation of the food system toward a more sustainable one.”
These include farm-system innovations, such as the use of chemical-free and organic farming methods; employing internal-control system for conventional vegetable production to assure food safety through the judicious use of pesticides; and smart agriculture technologies, such as the precise use of water and land resources, and resources conservation technologies to “reduce environmental impact.”
“PCAARRD has also invested over P300 million in the last five years for the development of crop monitoring and forecasting system intended to be institutionalized at the national, regional and community levels,” Brown said.
To strengthen the local food system, PCAARRD employs the Enriched Potting Preparation technology for urban agriculture, and backyard farming, especially in small spaces like condominiums and apartments.
It also works on building “resilient local supply chains to serve the current demand for food in the communities to shorten the supply chain.”
Brown emphasized the need for “digital inclusivity across agricultural and food-value chain” to ensure the participation of disadvantaged and marginal groups, and improve farm-data management and traceability.
“Farm-data management to track and trace production can improve operational efficiency, reduce inputs and ensure compliance with standards and regulations that are very relevant to meet the food vision,” Brown said.
Food is medicine, but medicine is not health
In the same forum, these questions were posed in adopting the PHD as a component of universal health care: Can food be used as preventive medicine? Can doctors write prescriptions for proper diet to address health issues that are rooted on nutrition? Will the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) reimburse these expenses?
“[There is] an extensive and growing evidence base—thanks to functional medicine—that food interventions can indeed be used to prevent and treat illnesses, health conditions or body ailments,” Marfori said during the forum.
Marfori added that doctors must be able to influence food choices within the health sector through the education of its health professionals and “mainstreaming the principles and approaches” of PHD in their patient interface.
But movements like PHD and food in medicine may be pursued with a government-appropriated “dedicated fund” or a “special health fund” coming from local government units or through the Department of Health, rather than covered by a social health insurance like PhilHealth that is associated as a sickness fund, according to Marfori.
“The role of health has been to provide the why, but not necessarily the how, like why should we care about the environment when it is turned into a health issue,” he said.
Designing a PHD community pantry
More than 1,300 community pantries across the country are currently providing immediate relief to Filipinos, who continue to cope with food insecurity, according to Community Pantry PH in its Facebook page May 5 tally.
These pantries, inspired by the Maginhawa Community Pantry in Quezon City that started with a small cart of canned goods, vegetables, and other food items on April 14, distribute fruits, vegetables and fish bought directly from farmers and fisherfolks.
One social entrepreneur helping farmers’ groups, including the Buhid indigenous people of Mindoro, is Cordillera Landing on You, which sells its produce to these community pantries. It has disposed about 3,500 kilos of assorted vegetables in the past two weeks.
It is especially timely that 2021 has been declared by the 74th session of the UN General Assembly as the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables to “raise awareness on the important role of fruits and vegetables in human nutrition, food security and health, as well in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.”
So how would the DOST-FNRI director “design” her community pantry?
“My pantry must be filled with green leafy and yellow vegetables, colored tubers like camote [sweet potato], banana sabá seeds and legumes like mongo, cardis [green peas], small fishes like dilis [anchovy] or any type of fish and other DOST-FNRI technologies like iron-fortified rice, enhanced nutribun, rice-mongo blend and curls, and micronutrient growth mix,” Agdeppa told the BusinessMirror in an e-mail.