Trias restricts Philippine victims food price increase
According to the FAO Food Price Index, the international food prices are seriously increasing. This means a great deal of trouble for the Philippine farmers whose household budgets are under pressure. Luckily, thanks to Trias, not everyone is affected.
© Trias
Philippine testimonies tell us about the big current increase in the prices of rice, meat, onions, garlic, flour, noodles, canned goods, instant formula and other food products. Also fish prices are locally increasing due to the reduced fish catch. All of this is causing a decrease of the incomes and a considerable pressure on the household budgets of the poor farmers.
The problem is that, since the farmers lack farm and business planning and household economy management, they cannot optimally plan production and household cash flows. As a consequence, they tend to sell the majority of their cash crops and then have to borrow to meet food needs at the end of the season. So instead of securing the food sufficiency to pay for the education of their children and meet household needs, the farmers have to resort to expensive food outside the farm.
So in general, the increased food prices are not of much benefit for the Philippine farmers. Fortunately, the farmer families who work with the farmer organization PDCI, partner of Trias, benefit from higher incomes, due to premium prices, and lower input costs over a long period of time. Trias also supports local food processing and production of local goods, such as organic teas, to increase the income of farmers based on locally available materials.
However, unfortunately, despite the help of Trias and PDCI, the income of the farmers remains insecure due to climate change effects and consequent farming patterns. Farming cycles are changing and farmers are confronted with longer periods of drought and rain, typhoons and floods. Because of this, the production yield is seriously affected and there is a great need to support the disaster mitigation, adaptation interventions, and organic conversion and solid waste management programs.