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THE PHILIPPINES ACTIVELY PARTICIPATES IN FAO COMMITTEE ON FOOD SECURITY AND PROMOTES FAMILY FARMING

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The Philippines was elected Bureau Member of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Committee on World Food Security (CFS) during the Committee’s 40th session held from 7 to 11 October 2013 in Rome, Italy.  The Philippines will serve for a two-year term, 2014-2015, as one of the representatives of the Asia group.  The other Bureau Member elected from Asia is Pakistan, with China and Indonesia as Alternate Members.  The new CFS Chairperson is Ambassador Gerda Verburg of The Netherlands, who shall head the intergovernmental and multistakeholder Committee for food security and nutrition, in the next two years.

Assistant Secretary Romeo Recide of the Department of Agriculture headed the Philippine delegation to the CFS, with NAFC Deputy Executive Director Florabelle Uy-Yap, Special Agriculture Representative (SAR) Lupiño Lazaro, Jr. and Asst. Agriculture Attaché Esteban  Pagaran, as members.

The Philippines’ SAR Lazaro also acted as Chairman of the Drafting Committee that prepared the CFS 40 report, which was approved by the Committee “en bloc”.  The report reflects the discussion and/or decisions made in the areas of (i) organizational matters; (ii) opening session; (iii) the State of Food Insecurity (SOFI) in the World 2013; (iv) policy convergence; (v) CFS workstreams; and (vi) coordination and linkages with CFS.

During the roundtable on smallholder agriculture the Philippines intervened, encouraging the use of CFS as a platform for sharing lessons learned and best practices in smallholder agriculture development and the transmission of information to relevant fora and processes such as the 2014 International Year of Family Farming (IYFF).

On 8 October 2013, the Philippines co-organized with France, a side event on “Developing Public Policies Towards Sustainable Family Farming”.  The French Minister in charge of Development, Mr. Pascal Canfin, opened the session, while Assistant Secretary Romeo Recide delivered the closing remarks.

The event was well-attended, with around 120 participants, and elicited substantive discussion on family farming, including on the role of CFS and on actions beyond advocacy of IYFF in 2014.  A Filipina, Ms. Marlene Ramirez of the Asian Partnership for the Development of Human Resources in Rural Areas (Asia DHRRA), provided a perspective on the family farming situation and public policies in the Asian region.  Other farmer and stakeholder presenters came from Africa, Europe and Latin America.

Two other side events on family farming were conducted during CFS 40.  One forum was on “Sustainable, equitable and viable food systems, civil society messages for the IYFF and beyond” organized by the Civil Society Mechanism (CSM) on 9 October, in which another Filipina, Ms. Esther Penunia of the Asian Farmers Association for Sustainable Development (AFA), acted as one of the speakers.  The other forum was on “The role of family farmers in providing a sustainable response to food security needs” organized by the World Farmers’ Organization (WFO) on 11 October.