“Hunger is not an issue of charity. It is an issue of justice.” – Jacques Diouf
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Recently, EDGE Davao came out with a news report stating that approximately 27.2% of Filipino families faced involuntary hunger in the past three months. The data was based on a recent survey conducted by Social Weather Stations (SWS).
The above figure represents an increase of 6.0% points from the 21.2% recorded in February 2025, marking the highest level since the peak of 30.7 percent observed during the recent pandemic in September 2020, as noted by the polling organization. Furthermore, the March statistic is 7 percentage points higher than last year’s average hunger rate of 20.2%.
Families in the Visayas region were reported to be the most affected by hunger, with a prevalence rate of 33.7%. This was followed by Metro Manila at 28.3%, Mindanao at 27.3%, and the remaining areas of Luzon at 24%.
Approximately 21% of families encountered moderate hunger, indicating they experienced hunger “only once” or “a few times” over the past three months. In contrast, 6.2% of families faced severe hunger, characterized by feelings of hunger “often” or “always.”
“There is a lot that happens around the world we cannot control,” American Congressman Jan Schakowsky once said. “We cannot stop earthquakes, we cannot prevent droughts, and we cannot prevent all conflict, but when we know where the hungry, the homeless and the sick exist, then we can help.”
Hunger is the physical sensation of desiring food. When politicians, relief workers and social scientists talk about people suffering from hunger, they usually refer to those who are unable to eat sufficient food to meet their basic nutritional needs for sustained periods of time.
Hunger is common not only in the Philippines but throughout the world. In 2007 and 2008, rapidly increasing food prices caused a global food crisis, increasing the numbers suffering from hunger by over a hundred million. Food riots erupted in several dozen countries; in at least two cases, Haiti and Madagascar, this led to governments being toppled.
A second global food crisis occurred due to the spike in food prices of late 2010 and early 2011. Less food riots occurred due in part to greater stockpiles of food being available for relief; however, several analysts have argued it was one of the causes of the Arab Spring.
Is there a solution in sight? “I now say that the world has the technology – either available or well advanced in the research pipeline – to feed on a sustainable basis a population of 10 billion people,” Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug pointed out. “The more pertinent question today is whether farmers and ranchers will be permitted to use this new technology?”
Dr. Borlaug, touted to be the “Man Who Saved A Billion Lives,” was referring to biotechnology. “While the affluent nations can certainly afford to adopt ultra low-risk positions, and pay more for food produced by the so-called ‘organic’ methods, the one billion chronically undernourished people of the low income, food-deficit nations cannot,” the American agronomist deplored.
In a regional crop biotechnology symposium held in Davao City last year, Dr. Vivencio R. Mamaril, of the country’s top experts on biotechnology, defines biotechnology as “range of tools, including traditional breeding techniques, that alter living organisms, or parts of organisms, to make or modify products or improve plants or animals.”
Biotechnology, however, is not a new innovation. For over ten millennia, farmers around the world have enhanced wild plants and animals by selecting and breeding for preferred traits, a process that has spanned numerous years.
In the Philippines, biotechnology has a long history, dating back to the 16th century. Filipinos utilized biotechnological methods in the production of various beverages, such as basi made from sugarcane, tuba derived from coconut and other palm trees, and tapuy, which is the Filipino equivalent of Japanese sake or rice wine.
In addition, beer is a product of biotechnology, along with other fermented items like patis (fish sauce), suka (vinegar), bagoong, and various types of cheese.
Ismail Serageldin, during his time as vice-president of World Bank, sees biotechnology playing a crucial part of agriculture in the 21st century. “All possible tools that can help promote sustainable agriculture for food security must be marshaled,” he said, “and biotechnology, safely developed, could be a tremendous help.”
Biotechnology’s primary contribution to the agricultural sector will be to increase the actual amount of food that can be grown on the planet. “At current rates of population growth, conventional techniques may soon be insufficient if farming is to keep pace with the scale of increases required in the 21st century,” wrote Victor Villalobos in an article which appeared in Ceres, a publication of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
All is not rosy, however. “I believe that this kind of genetic modification takes mankind into realms that belong to God, and to God alone,” deplored Prince Charles in 1998.
Dr. Peter Wills, a theoretical biologist at Auckland University, agrees: “By transferring genes across species barriers which have existed for eons, we risk breaching natural thresholds against unexpected biological processes.”
“If the naysayers do manage to stop agricultural biotechnology, they might actually precipitate the famines and the crisis of global biodiversity they have been predicting for nearly 40 years,” Dr. Borlaug lamented.
One sage puts it in perspective: “A man who has enough food has several problems. A man without food has only one problem.” Or as Horace puts it: “Only a stomach that rarely feels hungry scorns common things.”
