Prioritizing food security

Both foreign colonizers and Filipino politicians never prioritized food security for our people and our country.

- Cherry Piquero-Ballescas

Tobacco, sugar, abaca, pineapple, bananas --export more than food-- received the support from past foreign/ local administrations.

Continuing hunger as well as poverty have remained because of political abuse and vested interests. Past and present budgets have also not prioritized agriculture, food production, and food security.

Cebu Governor Pam Baricuatro and Cebu City Mayor Nestor Archival’s expressed commitment to prioritize food security during their administration is promising and laudable.

Within the next three years, will we finally have food security, less or no hunger here in Cebu?

The 1996 World Summit and the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization define food security as the condition “when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”