Strengthening the agricultural sector, a robust disaster management plan and continuous skills training for farmworkers are just some of the key strategies in ensuring food security in the Philippines amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Asian Development Bank (ADB) Country Director Kelly Bird said Tuesday.

Bird made these recommendations during the virtual “Discussion on Strategies for Food Security in Metro Manila in the midst of COVID-19,” a three-day forum sponsored by the United Nations in the Philippines.

The ADB official emphasized that food security “should be incorporated in the local government unit’s (LGUs) disaster management strategy” that would cover food for vulnerable families, open distribution channels and financing to rehabilitate public utilities, roads, and homes.

Since not everyone can be a farmer, Bird said the public has to rely on the agricultural sector that is “sufficient, adaptable and resilient.”

In the face of the challenges posed by climate change, he said the agricultural sector would need innovative ways of delivering extension services to the farmers through a partnership between the government and the private sector so the farmers can adopt new crops and new methods.

According to Bird, greater emphasis should be placed on skills development in the agricultural sector. “There should be continuous skills training throughout the life of workers in agriculture.”

The ADB is currently working with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and the Department of Tourism (DoT), in preparing a project to be launched this year designed for providing nurturing grounds to networks of enterprises to train and continuously re-skill their workers.

“One of the sectors will be the agro-business. We do want to look at the whole value chain from farm to producer. We can bring in innovations and IT adaptability,” the ADB exec said.

In addition, Bird sees the need for the Philippines to continue reforming the agricultural sector by bringing in competition and breaking down the barriers, similar to the deregulation of the rice sector in 2019.

“As we have seen productivity has improved and prices have stabilized. These are the kind of reform that can be replicated in other sectors as well,” he said.

Bird also noted some gaps during the pandemic and even through normal times in relation to the problem of stunting and malnutrition, particularly in very poor urban areas.

While the last two governments in the Philippines had implemented some programs like the school feeding program, the ADB country director believed that “much more can be done” to improve access to food.

He cited as an example the food stamps initiative from other countries to specifically provide pregnant women or women with children below five years old access to nutritional food to prevent stunting or malnutrition.

“This is a case of providing them with fish rather than teaching them to fish because they don't have the assets. But they do need to have access to good social services to help address that problem of stunting and malnutrition,” he said.