Press Release
January 17, 2011

ANGARA: BETTER AGRI YIELD TO SOLVE RP HUNGER PROBLEM

In a recent statement, Senator Edgardo J. Angara described the Philippines' agricultural industry as the key to solving the country's hunger problem.

The Social Weather Station (SWS) reported last week that an estimated 3.4 million Filipino families or 18.1 percent of the respondents for its year-end polls said that they had gone hungry in the last quarter of 2010. These figures showed a 2.1 percent increase from the same time period in 2009. Furthermore, over a third of the surveyed households--about 6.7 million families--also considered themselves food-poor.

"These numbers reflect the hunger situation in rural and poor urban areas due to the lack of access to affordable food supplies. The key here is to increase the productivity of the country's agricultural sector to meet these needs," said Angara.

According to Angara, former secretary of the Department of Agriculture, these industries need to be introduced to the developments in equipment and facilities to improve productivity and increase profit margins.

"Agriculture has always been the backbone of the Philippine economy, although it has gone through a period of low growth rates in the past few years. What we need now is better facilities and improved pre-and post-harvest programs such as credit for the farmers, irrigation systems, post-harvest facilities and farm-to-market roads to boost product quality," explained Angara.

Angara authored Senate Bill 2066 or the Agriculture and Fisheries Extension act, which seeks to enhance the agriculture and fisheries sector address the needs of the country; as well as SB 2058, the Magna Carta of Agriculture and Fishery Development workers. Both bills have been referred to their parent committees following the First Reading.

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