Headline news: The Philippines welcomed one of the world’s symbolic “seven billionth” babies Monday, after she arrived to a celebratory cheer at Manila’s Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital. Her name: Danica May Camacho. Danica is one of several children in countries around the world being declared a symbolic seven billionth human. The question: what’s in store for Danica and the other 7 billion people on planet Earth? A lifetime of prosperity or misery?
The world’s population was estimated at about 5 billion in 1987. It hit the 6-billion mark in 1998, and is now estimated at 7 billion. By 2025, the world’s population is expected to swell to 8 billion.
Good new, bad news
The good news is that the world is likely to have the resources to sustain a population of 7 billion. The bad news is that the distribution of resources is asymmetric. Resources are not where the rising population are — in most parts of Asia and Africa. Population growth is growing faster in the poorest economies of the world. For example, fertility rate is at a peak of 7.2 % in Niger and 2.7% in populous India.
But population growth is stagnating or falling in rich economies where the concern of governments is keeping growth going and providing for its aging population. Right now, this is the situation in Japan and most of Eastern Europe.
Looking ahead, every government should be concerned with how to feed its people and how to guarantee a bright future for its people in the light of an increasingly crowded world.
Let’s take the case of the Philippines. The United Nations Population Fund projects that there will be 105.9 million Filipinos by 2025. How will the Philippine government feed them?
Modernizing Philippine agriculture is one way. But that’s a task easier said than done. The quality of governance and fiscal space are keys. The immediate past administration looked at the agricultural challenge not as an opportunity for expanding food supply but as an opportunity for massive rent seeking. The headline corruption cases in the past Arroyo administration were in agriculture such as, for example, the fertilizer scam, irrigation mess, over pricing and over-importation of rice.
With the new government, swept into power on the back of a strong clamor for change, the expectation is that spending for the agricultural sector will be increased and better focused, and its implementation faster. There have been a lot of promises, but so far no concrete moves to improve agricultural outcomes.
The construction of irrigation facilities, an important input to higher production and productivity, has been stalled. The agrarian reform program, a major contributor to the decline in agriculture productivity, lacks direction.
More supply factors will tighten the constraints on agricultural production. As urbanization speeds up, more agricultural crop lands will be converted to housing or factory sites. As population expands, the demand for water for household uses increases which means less water for agriculture. With rising incomes follows a change in diet, which is rich in meat products, hence an increase in demand for agriculture crops for animal feeds. All these would increase the costs of producing agricultural products.
One way out is higher productivity through research and innovation. But with other spending priorities, higher budgets for research and innovation will be constrained.
There will be increasing pressures on the demand side. The expansion of population means more mouths to feed. With every passing day that the reproduction health bill is stalled in Congress, it means an increasing number of unwanted births. And with every day of delay, real reforms, like the RH bill or structural tax reform, are going to be increasingly difficult to push.
Political capital is finite. And going by past experiences, it is likely to dwindle with each passing day.
Hunger incidence: from losing to winning
The short-term outlook does not spell optimism for the future. The incidence of hunger has been persistently high during the last two years. After an encouraging dip in hunger incidence last June, hunger has bounced back.
The latest Social Weather Stations survey result shows that hunger is on the rise again. Some 4.3 million families or 21% of total population have experienced hunger over the last three months. Simply put, one in every five Filipino has experienced involuntary hunger recently.
Based on the SWS numbers, the hunger statistic is the worst so far for the Aquino III administration. The results were not equally bad for all major regions of the country, however. Hunger incidence is down in Mindanao (13% from 21.7% in June) and the Visayas (15.3% from 21%). But it is up in Metro Manila (23% from 13% — that is, by 10 percentage points) and the rest of Luzon (28.3% from 9.7% — that is, by a whopping18.6 percentage points).
One can attribute the bounce to volatility. However, the reality is that hunger incidence in recent years, on average, has been higher than in earlier years. The view that the incidence of hunger is worsening rather than easing appears warranted.
Social Welfare Secretary Soliman was quick to attribute the worsening incidence of hunger to typhoons and fuel price increases. I disagree with her assessment. First, the SWS survey was done from September 4 to 7, 2011. The destructive typhoons Pedring and Quiel took place three weeks later; previous typhoons were not as devastating. Second, fuel prices were generally on a downward trend, and combined with an appreciating peso, they could have little impact on food prices.
So what does the latest SWS survey on hunger suggest? At best, the Aquino III administration is making little progress in winning the war against hunger; at worst, it’s losing the war miserably.
And with the prospect of soaring population, the Aquino administration is faced with a formidable challenge: how to reverse a losing battle against hunger into to a winning one. It has to boost agriculture production through investment in research and development, use of modern methods of agriculture and building public infrastructure; it has to manage population growth effectively; it has to create massive employment in urban centers and in rural areas, in order to put money in the pockets of consumers.
The government has to modernize Philippine agriculture in order to make it less vulnerable to extreme weather patterns. It has do this while it invests in human capital and physical infrastructure, maintains peace and security for all in their homes, workplaces, and on the streets, and keeps its national defense strong and its territorial integrity intact.
Carpe diem!
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By: Benjamin E. Diokno – Core
Source: Business World, November 2, 2011
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