Antidote to hunger: NGO establishes Laguna farm to help secure its partners’ food future

By YVETTE TAN

According to an August 2023 survey by Social Weather Stations, about 10.4 percent of Filipino families have experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months. This means that the family has been hungry but did not have anything to eat.

Hunger isn’t the only problem that plagues many Filipino families. According to Statista, 14.5 percent of Filipino children were undernourished as of 2018. This means that though they may be getting the correct amount of calories, they might not be absorbing the needed nutrients for them to grow physically and mentally.

Rise Against Hunger Philippines (RAHP) is the first and only food bank in the Philippines that is recognized by the Global Food Banking Network. It currently serves about 1.5 million Filipinos every year. It was established in 2015 because the Philippines is prone to hunger due to different factors such as natural calamities, poverty, and so on. According to its data, 35% of Filipino schoolchildren are considered stunted, placing the country at number 10 worldwide. “Think of it, in the future, ⅓ of the Filipinos will be mentally retarded,” Jomar Fleras, RAHP Executive Director said. “It starts with the pregnancy, but the problem is that we have a law that is about the first 1,000 days [of the infant], but there is no budget for food for the mothers.”

To aid in its mission to provide nutritious food to Filipino families, RAHP set up the Good Food Farm in Calauan, Laguna. “There was a study by the World Bank on how to address malnutrition in the Philippines, and the main outcome of the study was that we have to address agriculture because that is the solution to addressing hunger, and that is going to be a long term solution.”

The organization had already set up urban farms in Taguig and Payatas, the latter converted from a garbage dump, but saw that these were too small, at about 300 sqm, to feed the number of people RAHP serviced. A grant from the Hilton Foundation gave them the capital they needed to build Good Food Farm. They chose Calauan because they were already feeding about 3,000 people there every day. This is in addition to another 2,000 sqm farm in the area. “…but it is never enough since we have to plant several types of vegetables, there is a productive cycle, and we have to let our land rest for a while,” Fleras said.

Good Food Farm

Good Food Farm spans 4.6 hectares on what used to be a mango orchard where its late owner, a writer and director, used to shoot films. “At the Good Food Farm, when you look at sustainable agriculture, our goal is to feed the land and not the plants, because the land will feed the plants. We are very conscious of taking care of the land,” Fleras said. “We… saw the potential of expanding our operation to include farm tourism. The Good Food Farm is the nexus of sustainable agriculture practices, farm tourism, and educational programs, so we have these three programs. And of course, for food security, all the outputs of the farm, all the harvests, go to our feeding programs, and we do not sell anything there.”

The farm employs 45 people from the community and grows pinakbet vegetables such as squashes, eggplants, okra, cabbages, sayote, and many more, practicing sustainable agriculture. “We do not just focus on planting; we do agronomy (crop production and soil management) and animal husbandry. We have cows and fish, and the idea there is that the cows provide fertilizer and the chicken manure feeds the fish. The fish manure that goes into the water helps provide fertilizer to the plants, and the plants feed the livestock… As much as possible, we do not waste anything. At the end of the day, not all harvests are for human consumption. Some may be too small, not ripe enough, or maybe spoiled, and that is what we feed our cattle.”

Fleras added that “The only thing that keeps the farm sustainable is our farm tourism aspect.” About a hectare is devoted to farm tourism facilities and amenities, which are available for vacations, team building activities, meetings, and celebrations.

There are casitas for overnight stays and an events space that can hold about 500 people. There are plans to open a restaurant called Anihan, which means harvest, and will focus on sustainable gastronomy. “Our cuisine will focus on what is available in our area and what is in season. We look at sustainable sourcing and sustainable consumption and production.”

Guests can also learn about sustainable agriculture, as well as RAHP’s advocacy to provide nutritious meals to Filipino children.

Rise Against Hunger

RAHP’s mission is to end hunger by 2030, though Fleras admits that this has been derailed by the pandemic, climate change, and other factors.

The organization does this through working with local partners on feeding programs where a nutritionally balanced and calorie dense rice and soy mixture is fed to all the students (and sometimes also their families) of a partner school for an entire year. The mix comes in four flavors: ginataan, champorado, beef congee, and arroz caldo. “We add fresh vegetables, eggs, and protein sauces, whatever they need to have. The rice soy meal packs are packed by volunteers from the corporate sector, which is part of their CSR. Instead of telling them to give us money, we can [conduct] activities at their office involving their people so they can pack these meals for distribution,” Fleras said.

RAHP services about 16,000 families in Calauan (just one of the many communities they serve) alone. “We also provide them with regular food items; we give them ayuda (food aid) enough for the whole family.”

READ: Case study: NGO’s feeding program proves that well fed students do better in school

The volunteer-run school feeding program, which is integrated with Don Bosco’s Technical Vocational Educational Training (TVET) has had a big impact among the students and their families. “…before we started our program [in Calauan], prostitution was very high. Girls as young as 11 years old are being bartered for food, such as cans of sardines, because they are very hungry,” Fleras said. “When you look at them, you can see children smiling. Before, they felt abandoned, but now there are groups to help.”

He added that attendance is higher and some of the students have been able to get scholarships from Don Bosco. “Some of them have taken applicational training, especially in automotive, and now they are working in Santa Rosa, where there are a lot of car manufacturing companies.”

Hope for a food secure future

RAHP has many plans, which include partnering with bagsakans, or market hubs, so discarded vegetables can be used to feed people instead of just being thrown away. They also plan to partner with buildings to construct hydroponic farms on their rooftops. But for now, it is focusing on agriculture. “I think that is the right path. Especially right now, when our agriculture system is so messed up,” Fleras said.

“I think the problem is not the people who are hungry, but the people who are greedy. I believe there is food for everyone, but there are a lot of greedy people. People are hoarding rice and onions and creating artificial shortages.”

He hopes that the model RAHP is pioneering will be adopted by other organizations. “It is replicable, and that is what we want to do; we want to show models. We are modeling this in Nueva Vizcaya, but there are five other bagsakan where they can do the same thing. If the farmers are going to throw away their food, why not donate it to some NGO that can distribute the food to those who are hungry?” Fleras said. “We cannot do everything. 70 percent of Filipinos are food insecure; we are only reaching one percent. Our model is to get the private sector to donate food because we do not get any subsidies from the government.”

Rise Against Hunger is just a starting point in equipping young Filipinos to become future citizens. “Our slogan at Rise Against Hunger is, ‘It starts with a meal.’ The meal should be the starting point for education, women’s empowerment, and better healthcare. It cannot be treated like just giving them the fish; you should go to people teaching them how to fish to give them better opportunities and livelihoods,” Fleras said. “It is just giving them a fighting chance.”

Photos by Yvette Tan and courtesy of Rise Against Hunger