Agri in Nutri

It’s always “go, grow, and glow!” every July’s celebration of Nutrition Month. We’ll deviate a bit from the usual medium of this column, I’d like to thank Bicol Mail’s quick approval for sheer benefit of this week’s topic. Let’s begin with Farmer’s Hour.

I’d like to start with the concept of nutrition from a “functionings” perspective by Amartya Sen, an Indian economist and philosopher. As part of Sen’s capability approach, he defines “functionings” as the various states of “being” and “doing” that an individual person attains or achieves. The approach works with the premise well-being is not just about having material resources or happiness, but about the opportunities people have to achieve valuable functionings and the freedom to choose those achievements (capabilities). Simply put, functionings are the things persons actually do and achieve in life while capabilities are the range of things a person could do and achieve if the person wanted to.

Relating this to nutrition, a person can only fully function when the individual’s dietary and nutritional requirements are satisfied on a daily basis. A fully functional individual, given his or her physical and mental capacity will work efficiently and effectively and contribute to our country’s economy. Food, a basic need, as the human body can be likened to a machine, is the fuel we need to make it operational. The question is, where do we get all the food we need?

The answer is agriculture. It’s our only source of food and sustenance. We cannot talk about nutrition without including agriculture in the conversation. There’s the long-time goal of attaining food security in every city or municipality in the country. Being food secure means having access to continuous supply of affordable, safe, and healthful food.

In 2023, the Department of Economy, Planning, and Development (DEPDev) (formerly NEDA), released their controversial and highly criticized poverty threshold and food threshold level. Poverty threshold is the minimum income needed by a family of five to meet the basic food and non-food needs was set at P 13,873.00 per month while food threshold is the minimum income required to meet basic food needs of a family of five is at P 9,581.00 per month. The food threshold divided by 30 days is equal to P 64.00 per person per day. Sisenta y cuatro pesos kada aldaw?! Uyugon mo yan! Pasencia na ta dai ko napugolan!

In defense, DEPDev retorted that the said food and poverty thresholds are not meant to set the budget for a decent standard of living, but as tools in measuring how effective the government’s efforts to improve the lives of the poor is.

It has been four years since the City Government of Naga implemented its Urban Agriculture Program aimed at making households food secure especially those identified with undernourished children.

I know for a fact that it would require more than just publishing a manual for urban gardening. There’s a great need for a shift in mindset, we do not need a lot Kristines or continued flooding in the city to realize that we can all grow our food as one of our “functioning” in support of our “freedoms”!