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Young Filipinos call for food security as presidential campaign heats up

Xinhua, April 27, 2016 Adjust font size:

Young Filipinos held a simultaneous flash mob nationwide on Wednesday around headquarters and provincial strongholds of presidential candidates to call for food security.

Farmers, students and professionals aged 18 to 30 years old joined the #IAmHampasLupa Movement and staged the dance mob in Manila, Bacolod, Baguio, Cebu, and Davao to demand an urgent response to the growing hunger of communities suffering from El Nino from the Aquino administration and concrete actions from presidential candidates to address the growing food emergency.

"We direct our plea to our next president: define and articulate concrete solutions to the problems faced by farmers now! " said Paolo martin Saberon, National Chair of the movement.

"In the last few days of the Aquino government, we urge them to stop feeding our farmers with bullets, and instead deliver what is right and what is just: food and appropriate support to our farmers," Saberon added.

Food security has long been an issue in this country of over 100 million people.

At the beginning of this year, the Philippine government said it was planning to import up to 400,000 metric tons of rice on top of the 500,000 metric tons it initially procured in view of the threat posed by the prolonged dry spell.

Earlier this month, central Philippine provinces of Iloilo, Bohol and Cebu, and Puerto Princesa city in southern Philippines declared state of calamity due to the effects of the El Nino weather phenomenon.

In Iloilo province alone, at least 32,800 hectares of rice lands were damaged due to the prolonged dry spell.

The Philippines ranked 72 among the 109 countries in Global Food Security Index 2015 designed and constructed by the Economic Intelligence Unit.

The biggest challenges facing the country's food security situation are corruption, lack of public expenditure on agricultural research and development, low gross domestic product per capita, and relatively low protein quality.

Although presidential candidates have vowed to address issues concerning people's livelihood, no one have put forward any detailed plans to solve food security problem yet.

The 2016 presidential election day falls on May 9 this year. Endit