A village feeding a child
Just as a best selling book says “It takes a village to raise a child,” it takes a village to feed a child. This concept must be used for the P12-billion school feeding program recently approved by the Congress. The objective is to transform the program from just nutrition into a catalyst for economic development.
This concept was discussed in a Jan. 8 Senate hearing by Senators Chiz Escudero and Rex Gatchalian. They said that strong Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) in their localities actively contributed to this objective.
Last week, Department of Agriculture (DA) officials likewise talked about how the farmers and fisherfolk in the community should be organized to provide the food for this program.
This is in contrast to a United Nations World Food Program (WFP) Philippines report that stated: ”Schools often rely on procurement from large food enterprises, which often use non-local ingredients. The low number of children per school, due to the policy of individual targeting, is preventing procurement at scale to bring in local farmers and suppliers.”
New approach
In the 1990’s, Brazil started this concept of Home-Grown Feeding Program (HGFP), where the community or village provides the food for the program. This catalyzes economic activity.
Last Jan. 5, Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto fulfilled a key campaign promise by launching a $4.3-billion feeding program. He stated that it would eventually provide 2.5 million new jobs, emphasizing the economic impact of this program.
The Philippines is the first Asian country to join the School Meals Coalition implementing the HGFP. This departs from the traditional idea that school feeding is solely the job of DepEd and its singular objective is nutrition.
The most important HGFP objective is that “it should be guided by concrete targets based on community-based procurement, with the use of food sourced from local suppliers and farmers.” This emphasizes economic development and job creation, with the program being the focus and market for this.
Other objectives are expanding targeting, ensuring annual coverage and increasing the fiscal budget of the program.”
We discussed how the Philippines is building on the HGFP idea in its own way. WFP country representative Regis Chapman arranged for us to talk to two key WFP movers.
The first is Cristina Murphy. She was a pioneer and helped start the HGFP concept in Brazil. She said that for the Philippines, the local government units (LGUs) are the most critical factor for the program’s success. They must mobilize both the government agencies and the private sector partners to attain the goal of the “village feeding the child.”
Two concepts
The second is Roland del Castillo, originally from the University of the Philippines. He advocates two key concepts that must be used for the Philippine program. One is “kapwa.” The program does not involve only DepEd, but also other partners who must coordinate and unite for this program. This includes other key groups, such as government agencies, school officials, parents, teachers, farmers, fisherfolk and small businesses.
The other concept is “pakiramdam.” The partners must feel that this program is not just an isolated feeding activity, but more importantly, a combined contribution of different sectors in building a community.
In our five conversations with DepEd Assistant Secretary Dexter Galban, we were very impressed by his competence. He is a medical doctor with a nursing degree and two master’s degrees in both business and public management. He is happy working with WFP and states that the key challenge now is to mobilize the community to provide the food for the program.
Galban hopes that the DA and LGU agriculture extension workers will organize the farmers and fisherfolk to meet this challenge. He added that the LGUs are the most important factor in achieving the economic mobilization of government agencies and private sector partners to make this program a catalyst for economic development.
DepEd Secretary Sonny Angara is fully behind the concept of “village feeding a child.” Other department secretaries must now similarly support these concepts, together with key private sector leaders. Only then will this feeding program transform into a catalyst for economic development, initially in the community, but later on a national scale.
