Villar bats for food security

IN line with her livelihood advocacy, first senator-elect Cynthia Villar pushed for food security, as she led the opening of the 6th Las Piñas Food Festival at the Villar Social Institute of Poverty
Alleviation and Governance (Sipag) Complex in Pulang Lupa Uno, Las Piñas City on Friday.

“As you know, my Senate committee is agriculture and food, I encourage you all to go into urban gardening so we would be able to produce our own vegetables when calamities hit the provinces,” Villar said.

“We aim that those who plant vegetable gardens will be able to turn it into their livelihood to ensure food security in our city,” she added.

Villar cited the 2017 World Population Prospects report of the United Nations’ Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which projected a global population of 9.8 billion by 2050, as well as the recent UN Food and Agriculture Organization report that said there would be a global food shortage in the same year.

“They predict that we should increase our food production by 50 percent in order to feed the world. That’s why we here in the Philippines should learn how to produce our own food and make sure it’s enough for after all, we are an agricultural country,” Villar said.

Since the launch of the Las Piñas Food Festival in 2013, Villar, who sits as the managing director of Villar Sipag, said there had been an increase in the participants in the festival’s cooking competition, with 20 villages of Las Piñas joining in its sixth edition.

She added that food retail booths had also increased with Villar Sipag opening more than 20 booths of micro and small enterprises from Las Piñas and the nearby areas of Cavite, Muntinlupa, Pasay and Quezon City to promote their products and services.

“Ninety-five percent of all the businesses in the Philippines are small and micro enterprises and 50 percent of them are in the food business” she said at a media interview on the sidelines of the fair.

The Las Piñas Food Festival has been an annual activity since 2013, and aims to promote food tourism, urban gardening and the city’s culinary heritage, as well as provide a platform for Las Piñas entrepreneurs to showcase their products and services.

“In a small way, [this is how] we aim to ensure food security in the city. As we conduct it every year, we aim to encourage more of our countrymen to plant their own crops, which will eventually turn into their source of livelihood and income,” Villar said.

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