As farmers in provinces hard hit by El Niño fight to save what remains of their standing crop, the Arroyo administration and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) are urging local governments to ensure alternative food sources at the community level, asking local officials and civic groups to start food production projects for the poor in backyards and public schools.

Secretary Domingo F. Panganiban of the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) said that while government has commenced an P882 million program to mitigate the effects of El Niño on the Filipino farm and fisheries sectors, reports of mounting damage to agriculture across the islands indicate a serious risk of increased hunger among the poorest of the poor.

"There is little doubt that El Niño will have a telling impact on domestic food supplies as drought has affected some of the nation's largest producers of rice," Panganiban said. He said farmers in South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, North Cotabato and Sarangani have already issued formal requests for assistance from the national government in the face of the prolonged dry spell.

"The last El Niño was in 2006, and it was considerably milder than what the country is experiencing now. Yet the Social Weather Stations (SWS) had reported a sharp increase in the incidence of self-rated hunger among Filipinos toward the end of that year," Panganiban added.

He said the national government is now working to expand a UNDP-funded program designed to establish sustainable food production systems for the poor at the community level.

"The success of the NAPC-UNDP 'Sapat at Masustansyang Pagkain sa Bawat Tahanan' (SAPAT) project in Abra and Apayao provinces has encouraged plans for expansion projects in Pangasinan and Metro Manila," he said.

UNDP Country Director Renaud Meyer said the SAPAT Program addresses the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of cutting hunger by half by 2015 through the development of systems to expand the food base at the community and household levels.

"The poor are always first to suffer from disruptions in the flow of food supplies. The SAPAT program provides a solution by affording impoverished families the assistance they need to raise vegetables, root and tuber crops, and native chicken in backyards and communal gardens," Meyer said.