RP gets another grant from EC for food security

The European Commission has approved a €6.4-million (P430 million) grant that will benefit poor farming communities in five Mindanao provinces and support food security, its head of the delegation said. In a statement, Ambassador Alistair MacDonald said the latest grant “reaffirms the European Union (EU)'s commitment to helping the Philippines address the challenges of food security and poverty." “We hope that this will help the Philippines to increase domestic food production and strengthen social safety nets, and in particular to lighten the impact of the food crisis on poor farming communities in Mindanao," he said adding this new program builds on the European Commission's partnership with the World Food Program (WFP) in the Philippines. The beneficiaries are Maguindanao, North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur. The grant is the second for the Philippines, which will be allocated €31.9 million (P2.1 billion) by the European Commission out of the €1 billion EU food facility created last year as response to escalating food prices in developing countries. Stephen Anderson, WFP country director and representative in the Philippines said, the focus would be on improving crop production through the rehabilitation of irrigation schemes, storage facilities and feeder roads. "Improving food production will mean both better nutrition and a better standard of living for the poor in Mindanao, who remain chronically food-insecure," he said. The project will be executed over 24 months starting next month to rebuild small scale agricultural infrastructure in poor and food-insecure areas in the highly vulnerable areas of Mindanao and to assist the government at the national level on better targeting through vulnerability analysis mapping, the statement read. The WFP will assist the government establish early warning systems and train key stakeholders in food security data collection and analysis to “help improve targeting" for government social safety-net programs, including large-scale rice subsidies in areas "of urgent need." The first grant of €10.0 million for the Philippines was approved in April 2009 for an irrigated rice production-enhancement program implemented by the International Fund for Agricultural Development in co-ordination with the Department of Agriculture and other concerned agencies. A third project with Food and Agriculture Organization is being finalized, the statement read.- R. A. M. Rubio, GMANews.TV