IT is a complete meal that goes beyond disaster response.
In Zambales, it is a boon to Aetas and locals, many of whom had been dependent on food aid for almost two decades now since Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991.
The Emergency Food Reserve (EFR) is made of the backyard vegetables cassava, malunggay and mungbean.
Fifty grams per serving for adults (about P1.75) is adequate to cover the recommended daily allowance per meal, according to Lourdes Solidum-Montevirgen of the Industrial Technology Development Institute’s (ITDI) Food Processing Division.
“Although we are starting with these three basic crops, any green vegetables and root crops will do,” she said.
Montevirgen, a Senior Science Research Specialist at ITDI, is the lead researcher in a study that applied simple dehydration technologies for selected crops to process vegetables into ready-to-use food.
The EFR can be stockpiled then used in food preparations to add balance and variety to emergency food rations during relief and rescue operations and nutrition feeding.
The EFR should be distributed in a FIFO (First In, First Out) basis.
The ITDI has identified for the EFR the crops adaptable to climate change and tolerant to drought and salty environments.
It has determined the drying characteristics of these crops, conducted product application studies, determined the required packaging, prepared a manual for rural communities, trained a pilot rural community to process the raw materials – and identified public-private cooperators.
In Botolan, cassava costs P7 per kilo; about half of that can be processed into flour. Raw malunggay leaves yield 7 percent powder; mungbean can be processed into 100 percent powder.
The approximate cost of the ERF produced in Botolan is P35 to 40 per kilogram, equivalent to 20 servings at 50 grams per serving.
Per 100 grams, cassava flour contains 87.8 percent carbohydrates and 1.1 percent protein; fresh malunggay has 12.4 percent carbohydrates and 6.1 percent protein; mungbean has 21.6 carbohydrates and 7.7 percent protein.
All three contain fibers, calcium, phosphorous, iron, retinol, beta-carotene, vitamin A, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin and ascorbic acid.
When processed into EFR, cassava flour has 57.8 percent carbohydrates (and 1.1 percent protein); malunggay has 52.91 percent carbohydrates and 26 percent protein; mungbean has 64.73 percent carbohydrates and 22 percent protein.
The composition is a blend of about 80 percent cassava flour, 5 percent dried malunggay and 15 percent mungbean.
Thus, Montevirgen said, EFR is not just a supplement but a complete nutrition food.
The EFR is based on a 2008 thesis that Montevirgen made for a Masters in Public Management, major in Technology Enterprise Development, degree at the Ateneo de Manila University.
The thesis was later awarded a Competitive Research Grant by the Canadian government’s Science and Technology Innovations for the Base of the Pyramid in Southeast Asia program (iBoP Asia) managed by the Ateneo School of Government.
“It was inspired by Joseph the Dreamer, the biblical story of how he stored food during seven years of plenty that was followed by seven years of famine,” she said.
“We don’t want to repeat the Mt. Pinatubo experience when entire communities were isolated and hungry,” she explained. “It is really a low-level technology so rural communities can afford the low-input technology that produces an all-purpose food base.”
Shelf Life
Six organizations of displaced minorities near six evacuation centers in Barangay San Juan, Botolan, were given 61 hectares of land to farm.
That’s about 35 families per six hectares, a core group that Montevirgen and the ITDI are encouraging to cultivate vegetables and root crops as EFR raw materials.
In Botolan, cassava production in 2010 averages 18 metric tons per hectare; sweet potato averages 14 MT and mungbean about 0.8 MT.
About P250,000 is needed for a 150-square-meter processing facility in Bgy. Loob Bunga Resettlement Area in San Juan, where most of the Botolan Aetas are relocated. The cost includes a P30,000 solar dryer.
A pilot plant can initially process 2,000 kilograms, or 2 tons of raw materials a week.
The Ramon Magsaysay Technology University in Iba, Zambales, has committed its processing facility in the meantime.
“Emergency food is important but government cannot do it alone,” Montevirgen pointed out. “Only 5 percent of the Internal Revenue Allotment of local governments, for example, is allotted for disaster assistance.”
She believes the EFR reduces the vulnerability of poor households to disasters or food price increases.
“It enables a community or a local government to build up resources for quick emergency response,” she said. “It can be delivered at the local level, making it very timely, and is cheaper than food aid shipped by international donors.”
Properly processed and packaged, the EFR has a shelf life of five to 10 years.
It is packed in water tight nylon polyethylene laminate plastic bags suitable during floods when dropped from a helicopter.
What is attractive about EFR is that it can be replicated nationwide as a livelihood scheme. It is designed to link emergency food production to agricultural development and livelihood generation.
The EFR has a commercial potential as an alternative staple as it is suitable for all types of nutritional programs and can be used by collective organizations like feeding centers and hospitals. It is useful also where no cooking facilities are available or when people are constantly evacuated.
It is a viable investment for private enterprises; it is in fact a less costly alternative to doling out big amounts of money during emergencies or disasters
The Flour Division of the Universal Robina Corporation, which makes flours from wheat, has shown interest because of consumer interests in vegetable-based bakery products and noodles.
Nestlé is willing to partner in sites where it has factories. The food giant says that while malnutrition needs to be eradicated, livelihood is a big part of the solution and that feeding alone is not enough. So the EFR fits well with its advocacy.
Food Crisis
“With the ongoing world food crisis and dwindling international food aid stocks, the chances of a worst-case scenario such as extreme food shortages when disaster strikes can be high,” Montevirgen said. “The production of emergency food reserve is essential.”
“To maximize its impact, this model can be used not only for disaster preparedness and, in a larger framework, as a strategic program for food security,” she said.
Local production of emergency food rations can eliminate dependence on foreign aid and can also generate livelihood, she said.
Citing United Nations figures, she said hunger is a leading cause of death worldwide, killing an estimated 10 million people every year. The UN World Food Program estimates over one billion people are “food insecure” and that food prices and mass hunger will continue to rise in the next decade.
Increasing populations, climate change and low crop productivity due to bad weather have taken their toll on the level of world food stocks that will put more impoverished people deeper into poverty.
The decline in world agricultural production has led to the need for massive emergency food aid efforts which do not really meet local needs, Montevirgen said.
The Philippines ranks among six countries most impacted by natural disasters. Poverty statistics in 2006 showed that 33 million Filipinos could not meet basic food needs, further magnifying the adverse effects of disasters.
“The impacts of extreme events could be disproportionately large in terms of the paralyzing devastation of rural, low-income or poor families,” Montevirgen pointed out.
The interaction of poverty, food availability, population growth, disasters, trade or agricultural policies and other world problems is complex and the effects can be multiple and can act simultaneously, she added.
(source: Business Insight)
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